Things have gone plum crazy in Kea this year, with this summer's wet weather conditions causing a bumper fruit crop.

The village's orchards, together with those in nearby Coombe, have been laden with ripe, juicy Kea plums, which are named after the village they are believed to have originated in - although how and when the first seeds were sown there still remains a mystery today, even to the area's most learned residents.

One such person is 88-year-old Elsie Jose, Coombe's eldest resident with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the area and its famed fruit.

She has lived in her cliff-top house, hidden amongst the orchards bursting with apples, damsons and of course Kea plums, ever since she moved there with her late husband Stanley 66 years ago.

Mrs Jose said: "They've been quite a nice size this year. I suppose there was so much rain watering the trees."

Despite being almost 90, Mrs Jose still sells the fruit from her orchard and always insists of overseeing her customers harvest it. She even has her own, home-made device for picking the fruit - a long pole with a hook on the end, that is used to shake the branches and dislodge the plums, which then fall to the ground onto a ready-laid sheet.

Over the years she has seen the demand for the plums decline, with their popularity reaching its peak in the 1950s and 60s.

"For years we were queued out, but it's all gone quiet now. The young people don't make jam or anything. Back in the 50s and 60s we had coach loads of people every year. One year we were very scarce and we only gave them four pounds worth in weight each. This year there have been too many really. They have been stepped on a lot - I hate seeing it really," she added.

Mrs Jose said her favourite way of eating the plums was making them into jam, although they were also nice cooked in pies and crumbles.

Ian Middleton is another Coombe resident who has seen one of his best-ever crops of plums this year.

Mr Middleton said: "It's been massive this year. Everyone has noticed how there is such an abundance of homes and they're still even now dropping to the ground. The branches are just laden with them."

He added that in addition to there being copious amounts of fruit, the season had also started earlier this year. Whereas normally residents would expect to begin picking the fruit in early September, this year there had been plums from mid-August.

Mr Middleton believed that the early season was due to the fine weather in April and May, followed by a wet summer to boost the crops.