So excited about our first bunch of pears from our apple tree. For seven years Kevin, my husband, had this tree and it had not produced a single fruit as no one had been tending to it.
When we got married and I came over to live on the farm, I decided to feed this tree regularly with my compost mix. I also made sure it received adequate water. Since I had been looking after it, the following year, the tree produced one fruit. Just the one. It was the first time we both realised it is a pear tree because Kevin had told me all along that it is an apple tree. When our “apple” tree produced a pear, he said, “Well, how about that? All these years I thought it was an apple tree.”
I could not be happier as I preferred pears to apples. So I’m glad we got pears from our apple tree. How I treasured that one fruit! Hovering over it like a mother hen and getting excited every time I thought it looked a little bigger than the week before.
When it ripened I carefully cut it and shared with Kevin and we relished every morsel we ate of that one fruit.
The following year, which is this year, we had more pears from our apple tree, about thirty after deducting what we lost to lorikeets.
When we feed our animals in the evenings, we have a flock of cockatoos, king parrots, lorikeets, white-headed pigeons and galahs converging to share dinner.
The colourful sights and sound are glorious to behold. However, if not careful these beautiful creatures can be painful when they damage crops.
We have many ways to avert this such as tying CDs to the branches. The sunshine on the CDs make them glitter and the birds don’t like this. At the time we did not protect our pear tree. So the naughty lorikeets got onto the branches and nibbled on many pears. They didn’t even eat a whole pear. Just took little bites and left the pears looking deformed.
Only after the damage was done, we put a net over the tree. I did not get rid of the partially eaten pears. I left them alongside the whole pears on the tree.
So both ripened together. Normally I would remove them so they would not rot and attract bugs, but this time I was busy and forgot.
I’m glad I didn’t because the most interesting thing happened. As the pears grew the holes from the bites began to close up, not entirely but at least they did not rot as I anticipated they would. It was like they were healing.
I had to throw out only a handful of pears which had been badly devoured. They rest are all good to eat.
As my husband Kevin had not known he had a pear tree, he didn’t know what sort of pears they were. I set about to find out especially since we had both not seen red pears. We began to wonder if they were red only when they were unripe. Would they turn green or yellowish green when ripe? They didn’t. They stayed that lovely red colour. When my mother-in-law came down from Sydney for a visit, she said she had never seen red pears either. I discovered later they are called Red Sensation.
I have no heart to cook the pears such as turning them into a dessert dish as they are organic and so special to me. Our first big harvest of pears. So I am eating them raw. They are so sweet. I can even eat the skin.
With supermarket pears and apples I always remove the skin as they are one of the most highly pesticide contaminated fruits according to Michael Pollan’s list called Dirty Dozen in his book, The Botany Of Desire. So here is my breakfast of chopped pears, organic blueberries and blackberries from my garden which is also organic as my garden is pesticide-free.
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