Fruit ladder

[Donna McCallum]

Does anyone in the Amherst area have a fruit ladder we could borrow for a day to harvest our Seckel pears? We'd be happy to share some of the harvest.

Thanks for considering this.

Donna

[Donna McCallum]

Thanks to everyone who responded so quickly. It turns our my neighbor has an apple picker that I'm going to try. I'll write back to individuals who offered ladders if I still need one after trying the picker.

What a great community we have here in Grow Food Amherst!

Gratefully,
Donna

[Donna McCallum]

We had the same experience last year. So we are going to harvest them now (even though they're quite firm still) with the hopes that they will ripen off the tree as other pears do.

Anyone else know about harvest time for seckels?

Best,
Donna





On Aug 27, 2013, at 12:12 PM, cfred...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Hi Donna, I don't have a fruit ladder but wondering what the best time is to harvest Seckel pears? We have a couple trees we found on our property which I thought were Seckel pears. We've been waiting to harvest them (because they're very hard pears) and then when we go to try and pick them they've disappeared. We thought raccoons maybe, but not sure.
>
> Sent from my iPhone

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[henry lappen]

Raccoons and squirrels do steal a lot of fruit.  If they are taking all or most of the fruit, trapping is the only real solution.  You could also try putting flashing around the trunk to keep them off.

But pears need to be harvested early and ripened off the tree anyway.  Pears ripen from the inside out so by the time they appear ripe, they are usually rotten inside.  I'm not sure on harvesting dates of Seckel around here.  I pick all my Patten variety pears early (but usually starting in late September) and ripen them on the counter, or keep in the fridge or root cellar for slower ripening.  Before the tree died, I picked my Clapp's Favorites around now.

A good way to check when yours are ripe is to squeeze the top, stem end.  It should be just a bit soft.  You can also cut one open and see if the seeds are brown.  If so, the pears are ripe and more than ready to pick.  They should come off easily with by lifting up the fruit away from the branch.

Good luck and write back if you have other questions.

  Henry

www.HenryLappen.com

Henry the Juggler
A Passion for Birds

[Donna McCallum]

Thanks Henry!  

[Gabor Lukacs]

They go brown and soft from the inside but that is different than rot. More like how pears ripen: if you taste the inside of the pear once it is brown you probably will agree with me that it is juicy and delicious, even more so than the white part of the fruit.

Gabor

[henry lappen]

I have tasted it, but prefer them white or just a little brown on the inside.

  Henry

www.HenryLappen.com

Henry the Juggler
A Passion for Birds

[Tricia]

Take me off the list.  The unsubscribe isn't working

From: Gabor Lukacs <gabo...@gmail.com>
To: henry lappen <w...@henrylappen.com>
Cc: Donna McCallum <donna.m...@gmail.com>; "cfred...@yahoo.com" <cfred...@yahoo.com>; "growfoo...@googlegroups.com" <growfoo...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: Fruit ladder

They go brown and soft from the inside but that is different than rot. More like how pears ripen: if you taste the inside of the pear once it is brown you probably will agree with me that it is juicy and delicious, even more so than the white part of the fruit.

Gabor

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 1:45 PM, henry lappen <w...@henrylappen.com> wrote:

Raccoons and squirrels do steal a lot of fruit.  If they are taking all or most of the fruit, trapping is the only real solution.  You could also try putting flashing around the trunk to keep them off.

But pears need to be harvested early and ripened off the tree anyway.  Pears ripen from the inside out so by the time they appear ripe, they are usually rotten inside.  I'm not sure on harvesting dates of Seckel around here.  I pick all my Patten variety pears early (but usually starting in late September) and ripen them on the counter, or keep in the fridge or root cellar for slower ripening.  Before the tree died, I picked my Clapp's Favorites around now.

A good way to check when yours are ripe is to squeeze the top, stem end.  It should be just a bit soft.  You can also cut one open and see if the seeds are brown.  If so, the pears are ripe and more than ready to pick.  They should come off easily with by lifting up the fruit away from the branch.

Good luck and write back if you have other questions.

  Henry

http://www.henrylappen.com/

Henry the Juggler
A Passion for Birds

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Donna McCallum <donna.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

We had the same experience last year.  So we are going to harvest them now (even though they're quite firm still) with the hopes that they will ripen off the tree as other pears do.

Anyone else know about harvest time for seckels?

Best,
Donna





On Aug 27, 2013, at 12:12 PM, cfred...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Hi Donna, I don't have a fruit ladder but wondering what the best time is to harvest Seckel pears?  We have a couple trees we found on our property which I thought were Seckel pears. We've been waiting to harvest them (because they're very hard pears) and then when we go to try and pick them they've disappeared.  We thought raccoons maybe, but not sure.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 27, 2013, at 10:32 AM, Donna McCallum <donna.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone in the Amherst area have a fruit ladder we could borrow for a day to harvest our Seckel pears?  We'd be happy to share some of the harvest.
>>
>> Thanks for considering this.
>>
>> Donna
>>
>>
>>

>>
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[Jordao, Emilie Marques]

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Thank you all!

Emilie

Sent from my iPhone