Incredible harvest today August 3rd of Clapps favorite! Picked a 5 gallon bucket already! Others are ripe but im getting to them as i can! Clapps favorite is an incredibly difficult pear to pick at the right time. Yesterday they were not ready but the green june beetles attacked telling me the sugar content was increasing so today i did the tilt test again and they are ripe ! These will rot from the inside out so if you grow them be mindful of the timing. The pear will look perfect on the outside and be rotten inside if you use visual clues only. The red blush is only going to be on the ones in direct sun. Clapps in my area take 10-15 years to produce on standard callery rootstock. The pears are good quality and worth the wait. Ive grown this type of pear since day one when i planted my first orchard of pears 25 years ago on this farm. Ive been around pears most of my life and weve picked and canned them since i can remember. Most pears outlive the person who planted them
Harrow dellight are ripe today August 3rd! They are so sweet and delicious 70% of this first crop was eaten by green june beetles ! They left me less than a couple of gallons of pears to harvest! Next year will be better i hope! My fault completely for ripening them so long on the tree but i wanted to be sure how this pear tasted in my area. Wow im very impressed with the flavor this year, they are twice as good as what i harvested last year. Ive always heard its an ok pear but the Kansas sun sweetened them nicely this year. Earlier this year the stink bugs damaged many!
Beautiful fruit, Clark. I can’t wait until mine are ready!
Thank you Mark may you be blessed with a bountiful crop this year! The crop is getting ripe before i can get it all picked! My mom came out today to work in the garden. She knows im busy picking fruit and soon she will be canning most of this first crop. She loves these early pears!
Clapps favorite that’s ripe versus a clapps favotite that is a day to ripe! The tilt test must be done frequently! Note the clapps favorite look the same from the outside (3rd pictute down) but ofcourse i already knew what the inside would look like and picked it to show my mother. The clapps favorite is very difficult to pick correctly as i mentioned. The top picture is ripe and the second picture is the pear on the right in the 3rd picture that is to ripe. A mystery this year is none of my pears have seeds so far that i picked but i did see pollinafors this year.
This is harrow delight which my mother and I were very impressed with this year.
Looking good, Clark. Congrats on the early harvest.
@SMC_zone6 Thank you Steven! Hope your having a fantastic growing year! I harvested 15 gallons of pears today so it was a good harvest. Fought mosquitos and heat with high humidity! Great looking and tasting harvest! We just had an unexpected rain recently which is why the humidity is so high. Over 4" of moisture total which was very unusual for this time of the year. Many fall pears are still bulking up so that rain really helped us. Every thing has went perfect this year and if it could get any better im not sure how! Some things we have not had time to pick eg. Plums. How are things looking in your area so far?
Wow, so early! Enjoy.
My pears are only nearing half sized.
@cis4elk Calvin,
Some of my pears are smaller than normal this year. We had a month or so with out any rain. The hot Kansas sun makes them ripe early. The fruit ripening times belive it or not are nearly 3 weeks behind what the fruit ripens some years. Our winter did not want to go away this year. Feeling very very thankful for this abundance we have. Have a great growing year Calvin may your harvest be plentiful!
Ate 4-5 Shinsecki off a graft i made a couple of years ago and was not impressed today. I suspect next year they will taste good. They were so ripe the beetles told me when to pick them by eating two of them. I nearly forget them. They did have stink bug damage and were growing on a shaded limb. I took a picture in case they had been mislabeled so i can identify them later. Many times delicious pears are not to good the first year. The small yellow pear i love so much might have tasted worse than these its first year or two. These asian pears took me by surprise because others rave about the flavor.
My Ayers are starting to ripen, but I don’t pick all at once,
just the ripe ones every day. This variety does not hang well
on the tree. It starts to rot very quickly, after it ripens. The
bees and bumbles tel me when to pick. You can easily tell
the sun side, as it turns red, while the shade side stays green,
as these pics show.
Asian pears are crunchy, juicy and sweet (mildly to very) fruit. In general, they do not have the same texture or complexity of flavor of Euro pears.
For people who are used to Euro pear’s taste and texture, they may feel disappointed by A pears. They are different. I like them both, knowing that they are not the same.
Ray you have some beautiful ayers there! Mine are close to ripe but i think your a little ahead of me. Please post us some pictires later Ray! Great job growing those! These are mine and i actually have several trees of them! Ayers are one of the better tasting of the disease resistant pears in my opinion. Ray years ago you advised i grow plumblee do you recall when it ripens?
@mamuang
Yes i love asian pears in general! Drippin Honey, Korean Giant, and Chojuro are some of my favorites when it comes to flavor! Cannot wait to see your pear photos this year! You had an incredible harvest last year! Your right people may not realize what they are planting. Most people who have never had an asian pear really love them when they try them.
My Asian pears took a big break this year after I did not do a good job of thinning for the past few years. I thinned around 70% off most years but clearly should gave thinned more.
My E pears are from scionwood exchange. With Winter Nelis turned out inaccurate, I wonder what else is not accurate.
Clark, I lost my Plumblee to fb several years ago and never
replaced it(lack of space). All of my pears ripen in August, and
I think Plumblee did too. I’m probably a week or two ahead of
you. Can you post some pics, I remember it was a large green
pear.
@mamuang
After awhile i quit thinning and let them produce as they will. Some trees produce more some years than others. Drippin Honey always has some kind of crop. As i found out last year its given to cracking if it rains during its ripening time. In a wet location that might be a problem but for Kansas its not really an issue.
@rayrose
The one plumblee fruit i know of i have this year left is this one and its small. I thought i sent you some scion wood but if i didnt and you want it again please let me know so i can send you some. Plumblee is not showing that its ripening yet.
For those of you who are new to the forum we all grow more pears than we post pictures of so please let us know if there is one your wanting to see and maybe one of us grows it. There are many pears others grow that i dont and vice versa. There are thousands of pears and i dont grow a fraction of all of them.
Wilder Early started ripening last week here in Western Oregon. It’s a good early pear, but will turn to styrofoam if you leave it on the tree too long. I pick them as soon as they show a slight suggestion of thinking about possibly turning yellow and just let them ripen on the counter for a few days to a week. My favorite way to eat them is to slice them up, freeze them on a cookie sheet and mix them with yogurt for a smoothie.
The little cutie in the middle is a Stacey (aka Staceyville). Ripens about a week after Wilder for me. I love the flavor, but it is a bit astringent sometimes and half the pear will be tart and the other half will be luscious and sweet. My tree is still young though, and since the parent tree is still alive after 300 years, mine should have a few more years to prove itself.
