Country diary: The outlook is good for this year’s cherry plum jam

There are yellow- and red-fruited forms of cherry plum. Photograph: Phil Gates

Cherry plums’ flower buds seem impatient here. Their scales began to loosen in early January. By the end of the month they’d swollen, like small clusters of miniature pearls, set in green clasps.

Then, one morning in mid-February, restraining sepals lost their grip, unable to contain the force within any longer. As the rising sun melted overnight frost, leaving glistening water droplets suspended from every twig, the first flowers unfurled their petals.