Did they need to be cut from the tree?
I’d make stuff with them,like Scott suggested. Brady
Somewhat juicy but not dripping or melting. Definitely not gummy. Sweet, soft plums.
The very ripe (soft to touch) dropped to the ground or dropped in my hand when touched. Otherwise, I used a small pruning snips to cut the stems.
@scottfsmith, do you have any suggestion on recipes? Never cooks with plums in my life.
Mrs.G might be helpful.They seem to be one of her favorites. Brady
I definitely prefer Castleton for fresh eating. Larger, meatier, sweet with aroma. I like to wait until it is fully ripe and a bit shriveled. I can eat those by lbs.
The classic mirabelle recipe is jam… Google should pull up some recipes. The traditional method is to use no pectin, but if you haven’t made jam before you might want to start with added pectin.
My wife makes a great plum tart, but I don’t have the recipe handy, I’m sure hers is more complicated than this one, but if I was baking with plums for the first time, I might go with this. It has the approval of thousands of people that don’t necessarily spend a lot of time in the kitchen.
You probably need to use your firmest plums for best results.
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Mam most Mirabelles except for Nancy are meant for cooking, not fresh eating. Perfumee de September refers only to the fact the farmers can smell their ripeness in the orchards telling them it’s time to harvest. Like peaches , they are ripe when you can walk past the tree and smell them. There is no perfume taste in the plum.
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Hello, they were thinned to 6-8", but still a lot on the tree. They are big, 3-4 to a lb. We have had this problem in the past with cool summers where they didn’t ripen well, hot summers they are great. The fall weather (this year in July and August) with 50 degree nights and 70 degree days will not ripen them to the sweet deliciousness they can be. Other of our prune plums did OK (if you don’t count the cracking caused by the rain) so Empress just needs more heat.
Eric
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I can’t smell a thing walking by them. I can tell they are ripe when I see them on the ground 
@scottfsmith, here is my one of the two French Improved plums. Sweet and aromatic. Brix at 26. Love it. Wish it was a bit bigger.
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Mamuang,
You can eat 2 lbs and size does not matter!!!
Tony
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I have two of this plums this year. Wish I had 2 lbs!!! I definitely could eat 2 lbs.
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Those are looking just like Middleburg to me. The timing is also correct. Also its what I thought I cut for you. I guess they are just late to color up. My Middleburg ripened only in the last week or two.
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That’s great. They should be more purple than this, right? One cracked one dropped yesterday. I have not eaten it yet.
A Coe’s dropped yesterday. The rest are still on the tree.
Here are my Euro plums at the moment. I do have Castleton but they ripened a few weeks earlier. Couldn’t make it to this line-up.
Biggest to smallest Coe’s Golden Drop, Middleburg, French Improved and Mirabelle - Parfume de Septembre.
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Your Middleburg is an Epineuse and your improved looks like a D’Agen.
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Mrs. G.,
I don’t know when Epineuse ripen. This plum also looks like Middleburg and the ripening time is about the same as Middleburg.
As for D’agen plum, some call it French prune. The one I have @scottfsmith told me it is French Improved. I wonder if they are the same or close relatives.
@scottfsmith, could you please chime in?
There are many variations of French prune plums, and I don’t think there is much difference between them. I have the French Improved which is pretty much the same as Prune d’Agen – its a seedling but very similar.
I’m pretty sure Middleburg is Middleburg seeing as thats what I thought I was cutting for you. Yes I screw up now and then but hopefully not too often! 
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d’Agen is not a variety. In the 19th century, when the French prune production was at its peak, prunes were sent from the Villeneuve area to the port of Agen and then shipped down the Garonne river in barrels marked “ORIGINE AGEN” hence the name “Pruneaux d’Agen” which has stayed. There have been a lot of local varieties (mostly pretty similar) and outside of the growing area they have been commonly called d’Agen.
One of these local varieties was called d’Ente, it was discovered in the 16th century by monks in Clairac who were among the first to propagate trees by grafting. Prune d’Ente became the leading French variety after the winter of 1709 killed many trees, requiring most orchards to be replanted. Therefore, d’Ente is another name that, along with d’Agen, is commonly used for French prunes.
Another of French prune varieties is Imperiale Epineuse, it was discovered as a chance seedling in Lot-et-Garonne department of France in the mid 19th century, and brought to the U.S. by Felix Gillet in the 1870s or 1880s. It was once widely grown in California for large prunes.
The French Improved plum was selected by Luther Burbank in California in 1908, a seedling of one of the imported French varieties. Burbank sold it to Leonard Coates of Morgan Hill, California, who at first called it the Improved French prune, later the Morganhill. Now, mostly the French Improved name is used.
In the early 20th century French prune production suffered significantly due to the competition from other producers, especially California. Then it was devastated by the two world wars. After the end of WW2, Mr. Bernhard of Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique visited the whole production area on his bicycle to build a collection of all varieties of prunes found there. He classified them by numbers then studied them and finally selected the six best cultivars. Through these studies the clone number 707 (Prune D’Ente 707 aka French Prune 707) became the base of most of the French plantings today.
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