Here you go @mamuang from Preserving by the Pint by Marisa McClellan (some changes by me - she doesn’t peel the pears but i didnt like the texture of the batch with the peels.)
Pear Jam with Chocolate
Makes 2 half-pints
1 1/2 lbs ripe pears
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
Core, peel, and dice the pears.
Place in a small bowl with sugar and lemon juice, stir well, and let macerate together for an hour
Cook pear mixture in a large surface area non-reactive pot over med-high heat. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring regularly until quite thick. It’s done when you pull a spatula through it and it doesnt immediately fill in the space.
Remove from heat and stir in cocoa powder.
Waterbath can (if desired) leaving 1/2" headspace and process for 10 minutes. This will need to be refrigerated and used fairly quickly if not canned.
Scott,
My other dilemma is when to pick them for refrigeration (varieties that need it).
If I pick them too early, would they ever ripen during refrigeration?
If I pick them too late, would they suffer core rot (had that happened before)n a fridge?
True, that can be challenging. The combination of color changing on some of the first ones to ripen, color of the fruit in general (similar to when to take them out of the fridge, but more like toning down from bright green to muted green to pick), and give when the thumb is pressed by the stem usually gets me pretty close. It’s hard to be perfect though, I had several Urbaniste rot on the tree last week as they ripened extra early before I noticed, and I have had several times when I picked too early and the pears never ripened well.
Just found out today that my one and only Fondante cracked badly.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience on this topic. I like Euro pears but they are a big pain. If I have a sunny soot, I would love to love my Abbe Fetel there but I don’t.
Well @mamuang now you tell me about the leaves!!! I think I did not want to wait till it got colder.
I am a bit reckless in the garden. I was so excited to move one, it was much easier than I expected, so I moved all three. I pre dug the holes and filled with water before hand. I soaked the trees the night before. I had summer pruned them hard in June to make sure they were not huge… these plums have never produced fruit. I found a sunnier spot for them.
Did I kill these plums? Give it to me straight! I may be needing to order new bareroots this month…
They don’t look good. Did you move root balls with dirt intact (balled and burlaped kind of moving trees). If you shook of dirt, that would be more detrimental to active growing trees.
I hope the trees can recover. Don’t let them dried out. Mulch well/thickly. You won’t know until next April if they will make it.
Have you ever ordered from Schlabach Nursery in NY? They run by Amish. Nice, honest people. Prices are reasonable. You beed to call for a catalog and order by mail. No online presence.
If you want to grow plums, let me know if you want scionwood. Lavina, Elephant Heart, Fake Valor and Laroda are all good. They get black knot but not asbad as mirabelles.
I’m interested in scions for Lavina and EH if you have some extra this winter. I’m willing to pay for them since my trees are a tiny subset of your collection and won’t be able to do much trading.
Colleen,
Grafting sounds more intimidating than it really is. I don’t have good fine motor skills so I don’t do whip and tongue. I just stick with a cleft graft and a bark graft. They have served me well.
Have you seen this thread. You can watch those videos when it snows here
I’m the same way. shake too much to do whip/ tongue. cleft has served me well and hasn’t failed me. not as pretty at 1st but in 3 -4 years it disappears anyway.
Yes, just from cleft and bark (for tiny scionwood), my success rate for apples, pears, plums have been at 100% or very close to it these past several years.
@SMC_zone6 - My friend’s Yates this year are large this year. He is not sure why. They usually almost half that size. I ate my one and only Shenandoah 3 days ago. It was sweeter than previous years. Could be because the 3+ weeks of no rain. Tasted excellent. Wish I had more
. I am tempted to buy couple of pounds of pears from grocery store and make a small batch
