Well, quite a few of the top fruits have been having a stellar year - my apples are groaning with the weight of apples (obviously awaiting my idle efforts at thinning). 30 years is getting on for a plum/gage though. I guess you won't know for sure until the next couple of years. The wood is worth holding onto though, if you know anyone who enjoys a bit of carving or turning - it can be a beautiful wood (like all the fruit trees).

It prb'ly won't expire unless all the loaded branches break off. :)

30 years is a good stretch and probably near its max., my plum trees start their decline once the borers take hold.

Luckily we don't have borers, they're even know as American Plum Borer. Let's hope it stays that way. The only disease in all those years is brown rot and there are so many plums that losing a few is neither here nor there.

Trees have off-years when they bare little, and then there are the loaded-years. I had a loaded-year Aprium last year and got nothing this year. The tree was fine until it got a harsh pruning trying to get it away from where the new fence now is. I probably won't get much again next year.

Well, it's happened. One large branch, about 5 inches diameter, has snapped off. I just hope that silver leaf doesn't get in. I'm picking as fast as I can, and have invited allotment neighbours to help themselves, but a lot are dropping off and rotting on the ground. I have a bucketful in the kitchen now. I think I'll just stew them up into compote and freeze. The eaters can remove their own stones at the table. No way I can be bothered!

Plum wine?

No, I won't be making wine. When we were young and poor I made a lot of country wines: apple, pear, elderberry, elderflower, dandelion... But now that we can afford good wine, and tell the difference, I don't bother. I will freeze them and use them up in due course. I'll probably make some chutney too.

The Brits recommend reducing the number of fruits in bumper years. That tends to produce more even cropping: more fruit in bad years, less fruit in good years.

I am aware of fruit thinning but reducing the number of greengages would be very fiddly, since they are not large fruit, and take absolutely hours. I'm just too lazy to bother.