Thursday, July 9, 2020

Pear Season!

I've been shredding along the edge of the pear tree rows and find them surprisingly close to being ready to pick.  The Orients have a fair crop and LeContes have a heavy set.  Since there are more Orient trees, I will have far more Orient than LeConte.  The LeConte are  naturally smaller are  made smaller this year by the heavy set.  Even with a light set, the Orients are smaller than their normal large size.

The LeContes are edible now and can be picked now for off tree ripening.  Contrary to most tree fruit, pear quality is higher if picked very firm and allowed to ripen in storage.

In the past, Orients have dried very nicely after softening in storage.

Pear pickers welcome.  Offer to give me a small fraction of your pick.


                                                     Orient

                                                        LeConte

I don't think the inline images allow zooming.  I'll post a link to an album that will allow  zooming.


7/9/2020
For my wuse pickers (and myself), I shredded the areas adjacent to the trees.  I picked perhaps 1/2 bu.  Eating LeContes as I went.  I'll devote myself to putting away several bushels of the LeContes and then start on Orients in a week or so.

8/1/2020
I've been the only picker.  Softening LeContes snuck up on me more than a week ago and I've been devoting myself to cutting and drying.  It looks like about five gallon pickle jars of dried.  I've stopped cutting LeContes and am metering the remainder out to very happy and enthusiastic burros.
I'm getting a little head start on the Orients.  I hope to dry about 50% more Orients than LeContes.

8/15/2020
Pears are about done.  I quit picking Orients, got most of the LeContes dried and am near the end of drying the Orients.  Got the cooler working nicely.  It stays 45-48 deg.  I think I will have about 15 about 1 gallon jars of dried pears; starting from about 10 bushels of fresh pears; that was about 500 pounds.  They dry to about 1/10th of fresh weight. What will I do with them?  No idea.  Eat as many as I can tolerate.

Hog trapper continues to make good progress; about 40, now.  Still plenty more out there, though.


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