Harrow Sweet Pear - storage?

[MES111]

I just picked my Harrow Sweet Pears.

Does it need any long term storage to develop sweetness?

Mike

[mamuang]

Mike,
I do not know much sweeter it could be after they are picked. I think in storage, any acidity level that pears may have would dissipate making pears appear sweeter.

I have picked mine when they turned light green, almost pale yellow. I’ve found that if I pick them any later, they will start to rot internally.

I have tried leaving them on counter for a week and eaten them.
I’ve also kept them in a fridge for at least a week, take a few out to ripen on the counter for 2-3 days before eating. Both have worked out fine.

I like putting them in a fridge as it slow down a ripening process. It gives me more time to eat them over several weeks. I have not kept it in a fridge more than a month. I don’t know how long it will keep in a fridge.

My feeling is that mine won’t keep very long as I picked them almost fully ripened.

[MES111]

@mamuang
This is the first crop. See below.

I have enough to experiment a little.

Wish me luck

Mike

[mamuang]

If they are that yellow, I would put most in a fridge so they don’t ripen all at once. I ate a few of the tree before and they were good. Leaving them on a counter for a few days makes it taste better ( to me).

Congrats. Mine have been very good, better than Seckel. Brix has been around 17-22.

[MES111]

@mamuang
Here are some of the others I picked today.

I am putting together a full orchard album for upload later

This is one that I lost on the tree and did not see. The rest picked 2 weeks ago

Mike

[mamuang]

What do you do with buckets and buckets of apples?

It is amazing you have such an abundant production on espaliered trees. I wish @tomIL had some of your magic touch on his espaliered apples.

[MES111]

@mamuang
I have been so fortunate that things worked out for me. Below are some mor e deom previous weeks.

I don’t inderstand why it has not worked for him

[mrsg47]

Wow, Mike that is incredible and all from espaliered trees. Very impressive work. Well done!

[MES111]

@mrsg47

Thanx

Mike

[hambone]

What’s the rootstock on your espaliers?

[MES111]

@hambone

Apples are mostly MM111 . I have specific records for specific varieties up at the orchard so I can get the info next week

Pears - Next week if you need

Mike

[hambone]

M111 is all I need to know, thanks. Amazing that you can keep M111 dwarfed like that. All pruning in summer? If so, do you risk fire blight in the pruning cuts?

[MES111]

@hambone

I summer prune in late June through August. I am careful to do it when hot dry conditions are in play. The wound dries up within a day so I have not had any issues.

I had one fireblight strike on a Conference pear in August of 2018. Below are the pictures I posted then.

As you can see it had gotten into the trunk so I chopped it down to 18 inches above the ground expecting to dig up the stump the following year.
Mid summer of 2019 a little green shoot started to grow right at the cut. I let it grow and it came back 100% clean and probably because of the large root system it is going like gangbusters.
The hard part is that it had just started fruiting. You can see a couple of pears in one of the pictures. The fruiting clock was reset.

[Spartan]

My harrow sweet is too young to worry about storage. Picked one pear a week ago and the other 3 yesterday. My first crop off a very young tree. I was very happy on the quality. Super sweet, thin skinned and very fine texture to the flesh. Looking forward to the day when I have a big enough crop to try canning them. Better than bartlett for fresh eating!
And I do love my bartlett.

[hambone]

Sounds like you prune multiple times from June to August? Roughly monthly or more often than that?

[MES111]

@hambone

Throughout as needed. Some cuts are for shaping and size control, some to create new areas that produce new fruit Spurs.

You would be surprised at how much and how fast regrowth happens. Sometimes it’s like playing whack-a-mole

Mike

[tomIL]

Thanks for thinking of my espalier apples! I think it was part of my too aggressive pruning, wrong prune time and technique. Also maybe part of it positioned too close to the fence. After years of not getting it, I think next year will be better.

I’m not giving up yet (until the house is sold for down-size purpose)! It’s been frustrated though.

I got fruits up my nose from peach, pear, plum, pawpaw, kumquat, lime, lemon, pomegranate, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, blackberry but never apple! Not the espaliers, not the stand-alone! The learning curve for apple was hard to figure from my part! And it probably naturally occur to most other apple growers! I’ve been observed that even wild trees line in the street yields apples, but mine!

Next year will be better. The Apple God will pity on me for all the efforts that I’ve sacrificed in His Name…

[MES111]

@tomIL

DO NOT give up. Just remember…

ABOVE THE CLOUDS…
THE SUN IS SHINING

Mike

[MES111]

@hambone

To add to my previous response…

I noticed that my response implied that I regularly go out to the orchard in order to prune . That is not the case at all.

If you remember, I get to my orchard only on weekends since it is 130 miles away at the summer “palace” or at the “other woman” as my better half calls it.

I do my “walkabout” in the orchard just to look and enjoy, to see progress, look out for disease, to photograph, to thin and sometimes just to “overdo it”. (Gotta live up to the motto (Why just do it when you can overdo it)

I always have my ARS pruners on my hip and, as I walk, if I see something that needs it, I reach to my hip and snip.

I have 90+ trees and, often, I will spot something in the p.m. that I missesd on the a.m. walkabout because I came up the row from the other direction.

I did not want to leave the impression that I am “consumed” by the drive to prune.

Actually, pruning is not a chore that I have to plan and set aside a particular time to do like for spraying, it just happens.

Mike