Moonglow

I had my first pear harvest today. The winter we moved in to this house, I planted two pear trees--a Warren and a Moonglow. To my chagrin, I later discovered that the Warren is literally a late bloomer, and won't mature for several more years, whereas the Moonglow is precocious and ready to fruit at a tender age--as long as there's another tree to pollinate it nearby. So this year, frustrated by several years of fruitless blossoms, I pulled some flowering branches from ornamental pear trees and tried using those to pollinate. The end results were successful, but not overwhelmingly so. Not as many blossoms turned to fruit as I'd have hoped, and there was substantial fruit drop the first month. But today, with another pear tree about a mile down the road dropping a dozen fruit daily and my green Moonglow pears taking on a russet coloring, I decided it was time to harvest.

All told, the final tally was 12 pears--some enormous and some puny, with most falling in between. Some have soft fireblight spots on them, the result of my not spraying the tree this year to control the disease. The pears are still too hard to eat, but it is my understanding that in Texas pears ripen better off the tree than on because of the intense summer heat. I'm a big pear fan, so I've got them piled up around some bananas on the kitchen cabinet to hasten ripening. Some day I hope to have a big enough harvest to attempt perry/pear wine, but for now I'll be happy with a fruity snack.

MoonglowNow Playing: Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother