Among the Dunes, A Fruit Worth Discovering

This week's nature column highlights a species that’s locally celebrated, delicious, and making a comeback.

Today’s Beach Plum Festival, held by the Friends of Island Beach State Park at the swimming beach gazebo, means we’re taking a look at the small dune-grower known as prunus maritima.

What they are:

Beach plums are unlike the plums you’d find in the produce aisle during summer. Instead, beach plums are small in comparison: bigger than a blueberry but smaller than a cherry. And while many plums fall from trees, beach plums are often plucked from shorter shrubs growing among the sand dunes.

At , one of the few places locally with a large stretch of the plants, their growth on the dunes means they are an important part of the oceanfront dune ecosystem that serves as a barrier for the mid-island ecosystems. Migratory birds feast on the small berry-like fruits come late August and early September, but you’ll find the plums have overly ripened by October.

Prunus maritima is part of the cherry family of stone fruits, meaning there’s a pit to avoid. The fruit itself is pretty sour, so a common means of consumption is to drown the fruit in sugar or alcohol (or both), or make it into a jam.

Where to find them:

Island Beach State Park’s dunes are loaded with beach plums plants, but you're not allowed to walk on the dunes, so look for the plant growing along the sidewalk and walkways instead. There, the plant also grows taller, as it is in the leeward side of a nearby building or dune.

Normally, the plant is short when it grows on the dunes itself, getting pruned naturally by the salt spray of the Atlantic Ocean.

There are also orchards of beach plums in Cape May, as well as in Cream Ridge. In fact, the beach plum is the official fruit of Cape May County.

Unfortunately, this year the fruit may be hard to pick as you wander around the beachfront. There was a large crop last year and the beach plum tends to be biennual, meaning there’s often a year between a booming harvest. And this year is that year.

blowing through the area didn’t help the harvest, either. Much of the fruit that would be available this year was lost to the hurricane.

However, you can still find the beach plum cultivated into commercial products, locally made by such folks as the Cape May County Beach Plum Association and local growers, who sell jars of beach plum jam in droves year round. Natali Vineyards sells a beach plum wine, even.

Why bother?

Beach plums are delicious! Whether you enjoy the sour fruit straight up or after a good boiling into jam, jelly, sauce or alcohol, there are lots of recipes to enjoy the fruit. The Friends of Island Beach State Park have a whole cookbook dedicated to it.

In addition to being wonderfully edible, the beach plum is important locally, as farmers, botanists and Ocean Spray have tried their hand at commercially farming and producing it as a crop. Some have said that if we ever unlock the key to sustaining the beach plum as a crop, sandy Southern New Jersey could have an industry as strong as blueberries and cranberries. Until then, the beach plum is a treasure among the dunes.

Want to learn more? The Friends of Island Beach State Park and the Cape May County Beach Plum Association will help spread the beach plum info, and they're spreading the beach plum jam, too. Check out both organizations to find out the history of the beach plum and some great recipes should you get your hands on a bushel.