September Schedule, Plus Pick a Perfect Pear

How time moves and the fruit flows. It’s not quite autumn, but I feel the dwindling of the light and shifting of the seasons. Our stone fruit trees are mostly done. The apples, pears and figs are about to leap into ripeness. The swirling flocks of blackbirds are back. They were here when we first visited this property eleven years ago, and I welcome them back as an annual reminder of how lucky we are to be here.

September Schedule

I’ve added some farm events for September, check out the schedule below. I hope to see you here!

Sept 1 - Closed for Labor Day

Sept 8 - Farm stand open 10-2 and you pick roses still going strong

Sept 15 - Fruit Tasting & Farm Tour


Sept 22 - Books in the Boughs, Art in the Orchard

Sept 29 - Fruit Tasting & Farm Tour
 

Folks have been asking if we will have wreath making workshops this year. The answer is yes! The delightful and ever so talented Jessica Tunis will be teaching two wreath workshops here, on November 24th and December 15th. Mark your calendars! Tickets will be on sale in late September/early October. I will announce them through this newsletter and social media.

 

Picking and Ripening the Perfect Pear

A lot of people who visit the farm tell me they don’t like pears. I get it. Most pears in stores are hard rocky lumps of inedible matter. Not tasty. Not appealing. A good and perfectly ripened pear though, that’s a whole different fruit. The flesh should be buttery, meltingly soft and sweet as sugar. A good pear is a beautiful thing indeed.

So, how can you have great pear experience? Let’s start with a little background. Pears are unique in terms of how they ripen. They ripen from the inside out. So when the outside seems soft, the inside is often rotten. That's why they are so often not good. 


Ideally, they are picked when mature, but not ripe. Then they go into commercial cold storage for a few weeks usually (your fridge works too). And then they will develop that perfect buttery texture sitting at room temperature for 3-7 days. 

So usually when you get a pear at a supermarket or farmer’s market, it has just come out of cold storage. The fruit will need to sit a bit on your counter to develop the perfect texture. When you can press your thumb at the top of the fruit where the stem was attached, and it gives a little, that’s the sign the pear is ready to eat.

If you are lucky enough to have a pear in your backyard, you may wonder when to pick the fruit. A good indicator is when the first few fruits fall to the ground. A pear should detach easily from the branch when you lift it up or twist a little too.