Pears, pears, pears

Pears are great fruit that will thrive in our lovely NE Texas climate and soil.  It seems that no matter where I drive out in the country, I see a pear tree loaded with fruit.  They may be beside an abandoned barn, in a front yard, or standing in a field next to a park.  One of the things that this tells me is that once a pear tree is established, it is resiliant!  I read one post in my search for information about this hardy produce that jokingly suggested that the only thing you could do to kill a pear tree is pamper it.  Hmmm, this is sounding like my kind of tree!  In truth, I have killed a pear tree or two.  I have a couple struggling in the back yard right now that wish I had planted them somewhere else.  It seems that, once again, picking the right variety and proper location are the key to success. 

The picture at the start of this post is a small portion of the haul the kids and I gathered from a lonely tree next to the park my kids play at.   After some research, I have come to the conclusion that these are Kieffer pears.   This tree is described on Texas A&M horticulture website as the "old standard of pears".  They are heavy fruit bearers that will ripen in late September to October.  It also says they are "higly reistant to fire blight".    Sounding good...

Just on a state level, we seem to be on the border of Texas tree growing zones one and two.  That leaves a wide variety of pears available to us to grow.  I love the idea of the old, hardy, do-nothing-to-it and have it produce year after year kind, but the fruit of the Kieffer is not the high dessert quality that some people prefer.  Never fear, there are still more than ten variety of pear trees that will survive in our area if you find the right location!  One that is good in Zone one (which seems to encompass most of west Texas all the way over to Grayson County) is the Moonglow.  I have seen this particular variety in many nurseries around here, and have some in my yard.  They struggled over this hot summer, but did survive with only one watering from us.  The yield was very small, but the trees have only been in for two years.  The other pear tree we have planted out there is an Asian variety.  I have not given up on these trees and feel that they will thrive in years to come, but my next one will be a Kieffer and it is getting planted on either the north or east side of the house.

So, what do you do with all of those pears?  Give them to friends of course!  And eat them and make preserves, pies, and pear butter. 

I have a pan of pears boiling on the stove right now.  Trying out new recipies is a thing of joy!   The recipe for today can be found here:  http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pear_butter/

The pear butter in the picture is from here:
:http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spiced-Pear-Butter-2789

I don't know how today's will turn out, but the cinammon/vanilla recipe is wonderful!

Have fun and happy gardening!

Jelly Making

I was having a great debate with myself as to whether to title this post 'The Fruits of my Labor' or 'Plum Tired'. As you can see, I ended up choosing neither one. Just too big a decision for this time of night. 'Why are you so tired?' one might ask. Well, even if you didn't ask that, let me tell you. I've been making jelly. Lots of it. After twenty four pints of plum jelly from the plums off of the trees in our yard, ten pints of blueberry (my sad little plants didn't yield this year, so we went to a pick your own blueberry farm), and twenty seven pints of wild plum jelly made from plums my husband picked in West Texas last weekend, I'm tired of the whole thing. The good news is that I learned how to can and am willing to share what I've learned with you!

According to my mother-in-law, you can make any type of jelly you want without the aid of fruit pectin (more commonly known as Sure-Jell). After boiling the fruit long enough to get it soft, smash it up to get the juice and pulp out. Combine two cups of juice with two cups of sugar and boil it for ten minutes. To that mixture, add two more cups of juice and two more cups of sugar. Boil it for another ten minutes. Pour this syrup into your prepared jars, apply hot lids and relax. Each batch yields about two pints of jelly.

She says that starting with three or fours cups to make the process go faster just won't work. For whatever reason, you have to stick with two. I don't know the validity of that argument yet. I got tired standing over the stove stirring tonight, and started adding an extra cup of juice and sugar now and then. My figuring was that if you added a little extra, it would boil down a little slower, so you should add a couple of minutes to the boil time. I don't know how it will jell, as I just poured it into the jars and sealed them, but the liquid consistency looked about right.

If you want to make pectin free jelly with a tested and approved recipe, stick with the one above. I've sampled and tested plenty of it this week and definitely approve! Tonight's experiments may or may not prove successful, but I'll have fun finding out.