Early fruits come in

Asian pears and apples

When I checked the orchard last evening, there was a big Shinseiki asian pear on the ground. It had a big rotten area on one side, but the other side looked really good. I wanted to taste it and see how close it was to ripe, so I took it up to the house to cut out the bad part. When I cut into it, the flesh was so crisp it crunched as I cut, and juice dripped from it. Of course I ate it! It hadn't developed much flavor yet--it needs another month--but it was mildly sweet and the texture was terrific. So I decided to go around and shake all the trees. Seven pears and five apples!

The dark red apple on the lower right is the only gala--it really didn't want to come off but it's so blemished I doubt there'll be much to eat on it. Its footie got peeled back early on by a critter and it's been scarred since it was half this size. The two on the top are Honeycrisp and the two smaller ones on the bottom are liberties. The two darker pears are Chojuros, and the light yellow ones are Shinseikis.

Several of these fruits have wounds where squirrels tried to chew through the footies, but I can cut around those. I weighed the bagful and it was six pounds! I put the apples in the fridge (I still need to check and see if the Honeycrisp need cold storage) and the pears out on the counter to ripen a bit more.

The squirrel repellers I put up two weeks ago still seem to be keeping the squirrels away. The liberty and the pears still have another month or so till full ripening, but I'll keep watching them and checking. I'm glad I'm getting some of my harvest!