Port Potager

Remember our pear harvest ? I don't blame you if you don’t — it was a tiny crop of just five Anjou pears. They have been in cold storage since we picked them back in September. As I suspected we would, we kind of forgot about them in the crisper drawer. Now, pears are meant to last a long while in cold storage. In fact, they need to be held at low temperatures for several weeks before eating to help them ripen properly.  Still, they don't require almost five months in the fridge. This was made obvious by the bruised spots on them when I took them out last weekend. We lost one outright, and most of the rest had at least one soft spot.  Oops. Lesson learned for next year — start eating pears in December. And figure out a way to keep them from rolling around in the crisper drawer to avoid bruising as much as possible. Despite this stumble, our pears were usable and delicious. I'm not a fan of eating pears raw, but they are great in baking. To wit: ...

While not as impressive as our massive peach harvest , our first-ever pear harvest is in the books: That's all of it — just five Anjou pears. That may not seem like much, but pear trees typically take several years before they bear fruit, so the fact that we have any pears at all yet is pretty exciting. I also pollinated these myself with a paint brush back in the spring, since our other pear tree didn't bloom this year.  The pears aren't ready to eat yet, but they seemed ready to harvest because they pulled easily off of the tree. Pears have a two-part ripening process: first you have to chill them, then you have to allow them to ripen at room temperature before you want to use them. The best information I found was from Oregon State , and according to them, Anjou pears should be chilled for a minimum of two to six weeks, then ripened at room temperature for another week to ten days.  I put ours in the crisper drawer of our fridge, and set it for high humid...