I had decent luck this year with Warden Seckel, Dana’s Hovey, Got a few White Doyenne, one Moonglow. The size and flavor were decent. Nothing spectacular, but at least I have some good ones and will be able to put up a few quarts for winter.
Squirrels sure loved them.
Squirrels love to just take a bite out of my pears, then leave them.
Don’t know if I would qualify to post here. My pears have suffered the worst sooty blotch and fly specks this year. I think it has negatively affected pear development this year. Fruit are smaller in size. Quality has not been there. So far, my unknown (possible Maxine) and Magness were a disappointment. Barely edible.
I will see if Docteur Desportes, Potomac and Abbe Fetel will be better. I am not that certain.
Good luck, Tipi!
Harrow Sweet are the two on the left. Docteur Desportes are the two on the right. Most have worse sooty blotch than these four. They are also about 50% smaller in size than usual.
It is the year of arrested development of all my pears.
I have a fair number of Euro pear grafts but never gave them much attention since I don’t seem to be good at ripening them properly. This year, however, I must’ve pick them at the right time. I put them in a paper bag for a week and had a dozen or so of the best pears I’ve ever had. I might of had more, but the hornets and yellow jackets are terrible on pears. I haven’t figured out how to beat them. I basically got zero usable apples this year because of them.
I have heard that several Euro pears need refrigeration to ripen them properly. I have not heard of putting them in paper bags. What varieties you did it that way. I could try it.
I think @Robert talked about giving up on Euro pears due to ripening process headache. I am likely to give up those that need refrigeration to ripen. I have not gotten it right. It is frustrating.
I will keep Harrow Sweet because I know for sure I can eat them ripened on the counter.
I have Bartlett pears for the first time this year. I’ve read they need 14 day in the refrigerator before ripening. I’ll try some 7 and some 14 days.
our pears are pretty great this year, larger than ever because of a wet cool summer and a warm autumn.
I have been experimenting with ripening some in the fridge. It is complicated for sure. I have picked some about 4 weeks, 2 weeks 1 week early put them in the fridge… take them out… they ripen with a better texture than ones left on the tree, less sweet the earlier picked of course… More winter pears to come in the years ahead and more to learn, I am taking notes on the timings.
A complicating factor for ripening pears that require a chill period is the question of how much chill they get before they start falling on their own. And that will vary from year to year.
Not giving up, just switching to more varieties that do not need the fridge. A lot of my ripening issues went away after the trees got older.
I’m pretty sure the were Starking Delicious, aka Maxine. Some got overripe so it’s not a perfect process. I tried putting some of them in the fridge for a few weeks also but they didn’t seem to change much.
My unknown pear started dropping and detaching, when tilted horizontally, early. I don’t think they were as tree ripened as usual. I’ve been refrigerating and then ripening in a bag. Typically they’ll ripen up on the counter just fine.
I’ve gotten my first couple Warren pears and tried them at different stages. One that was in the refrigerator for a week or two, then put in a paper bag, was incredibly good. Really excited to be getting more of these in the future!
Only 1 Harrow Sweet this year and it is still hanging. Last year, they were great.
I am focusing on keeping only varieties not requiring refrigeration, too.
@ztom. I think I had Maxine last year. No refrigeration needed.
I almost did this year. I used several of the trap in the link below in the spring, once temperatures got to the seventies, the queens get trapped and die without forming the colonies. In August and September I had very low hornet pressure compared to previous years. Apparently though, some strains are not attracted to the pheromone (heptyl butyrate) used in this trap, and they have to be dealt with another way, like using stations of apple juice poisoned with Boric acid, or finding there nest and spraying it.
RESCUE Non-Toxic Reusable Yellowjacket Trap and 2 Week Refills, 2 Pack Amazon.com
You forgot the link. I’m interested in that myself. The standard traps are not cutting it.
@mamuang When you buy a pear tree it should include a ripening manual. I did not know anything at all about refrigeration when I first started. I regrafted a lot over to the Harrow varieties. They seem to be the easiest to no fridge ripen.
I when I bought Harrow Sweet and Blake’s Pride from Schlabach many years ago. It had a pamphlet telling me how to plant. It did not have info about ripening time.
The rest were scionwood from other members that I grafted on my OHxF 87.
Sorry, I edited my post and added the link.
The timing is key to success. These traps can be used in the summer, and they will trap hundreds of hornets, but just a single colony has thousands of members, and you can’t catch them all. The reason boric acid works I’m the summer, because the workers take the poisoned food back to the colony, killing the queen and all the members that live there. Boric acid works similarly with ants.
How did you do the boric acid for hornets? I have some of that now. I had some limited success with a bug zapper also. Noticed that the hornets did not quit work at sun down and were attracted to the lights. The zapper didn’t get tons of them, but getting any made me feel good.
I used borax (same like boric acid), dissolving it to saturation in cheep apple juice, and hanging partially open cup sized containers of it around the orchard. I have not fully vetted this method, but I can tell for sure that hornets are attracted (some of them drowned) and no bees were observed. I tried several things together last year (sprayed nests, sprayed bugs infested fig tree, borax traps), at the end of the summer hornet pressure was greatly reduced. This year I used the traps I mentioned above in the spring and caught a lot of queens, and hornet pressure has been very low throughout the season.
