First fruits from our small potted multi-grafted pear tree. This is our total crop of pear for the year, ha ha ha. Not a bad start, the potted tree is small and letting it bear fruits, I intend to keep it small. Will do some bark inversion later.
This was harvested from the Hosui Pear branch. It is an Asian pear, crunchy sweet and crispy with lots of juice. Best when sliced and soaked in lemonade, chilled in fridge at least 4 hours and serve while cold! Delicious!
Was surprised that it has escaped fireblight infections which is rampant in our area, also escaped coddling moth infestations by tucking it next to my citrus trees.
The pear tree is small and in a pot, so I can move it around, in between citruses. Maybe it masked the aroma of the pear fruits! Afterall, the scent of the citruses are far stronger than the pear fruits. So it was harder for the coddling moths to sniff them out, and so they fly over to the other yards that has full load of apples or pears.
Might try to tuck them in between my guavas too! Guava is known to have insect repellant properties that’s why I planted these to ward off the ACP just in case they decided to move north from the lower central valley.
We planted a Hosui 2 years ago and it gave us about a dozen fruit this year. We did not share any with anyone!!! They were delicious… My wife and I watched the tree closely, tickling the fruit nearly every day, waiting on the next one to fall into our greedy little hands.
I harvest most of my Hosui pears when they come off the branch easily when twisted, just like most apples. Mine are still not ripe, although I’ve accidentally knocked a few off the tree accidentally; and they already taste pretty good, but with rather tough skin. They will start to fall off the tree naturally when fully ripe.
I don’t think it will be overripe, but it could be bruised when it falls and should not be stored for long. I only use the first natural falls as a guide to when picking should start.
I mainly use the color. They will not have any green bits left and are starting to get more on the bronze side. I pick the most ripe one and taste and then go from there based on color. It can get overripe so don’t just let them hang.
Today I noticed another clue to ripeness and recalled that it is what I used last year. Several pears were on the ground and most had holes pecked into them. I looked up and found several that were still on the tree but riddled with holes. Anyway, this has begun to happen quite recently and means that I have to pick almost all of the Hosui pears, or I will lose most of the crop.
I’ve never used color as a guide to ripeness, but I’ll examine it when I pick them. I’m pretty sure that none of them look green now.
@clarkinks I have one lone hosui but the skin looks and probably feels rougher than what you have here, all of which look plump and taut. More brown and akin to a person who needs to use some “skin cream” lol Is it a sign it’s far from ripe or maybe the tree was just underwatered? The flower bloomed between Apr 28 - May 1.
Hosui is one of the best, IMO. They have a good dollop of the butterscotch/rum flavor you find in several of the good japanese cultivars, the texture is amazing, and they almost explode with juice. They can get quite big too, if you thin them. The only snag is they dont really keep, so you only have a couple of weeks to gobble them all up. We usually do OK
They seem to have some resistance but i thought that of harrow delight too. I had about 30 harrow delight trees 90% killed by fireblight this year. I’m really much more careful than i used to be now. The experts on disease and fruit production of pears are frequently wrong about what they recommend. Like you i have seen hosii do well this year. Most years my fruit on that tree has been insigifant.
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