Sunday, September 28, 2014

Putting Up Pears

My neighbor's pear tree was prolific this year.

She offered me some a couple of weeks ago.  To which, I excitedly accepted, thinking there might be enough for a small batch of butter.  But by the end of the afternoon, she and the kids had picked 6 grocery sacks and brought them over.


I'm really glad that we kept our peach boxes, as they were just enough to hold the bounty of pears.

I hadn't put up pears before, but they need to be picked while still firm and then allowed to ripen on the counter.  So these guys rested on the kitchen counter for a week.


I processed about 1/3 of them last weekend, as the remainder were still too hard to do anything with.


But after another week on the counter, most had crossed over to too ripe.  :-(

These pears were pretty small, so the yield was also quite small for the amount of work involved.  However, I did make one small batch each of butter and jam.  They are delicious.


I'll be getting started on our apples later today.  What a wonderful harvest season we're having this year.  :-)

1 comment:

Practical Frog said...

My mum used to bottle pears in 1/4's and we ate them all winter with either ice cream for dessert or with cereal for breakfast. I've never seen pear jam or butter before! - K x