Yellow Bartlett Pears

This is actually one of our baskets of culls, but it proved much more photogenic than the four cases in cold storage. It and the other basket of culls will be used to make dried pear slices and juice. We also fed a bucket of grounders to the neighbors' donkeys and left two outside the fence for the deer. The keepers will be used for eating, sauces and canning to last us through the winter. Unlike an apple, the true color and flavor of a pear comes out best after a stint in cold storage. If ripened on the tree, the sugars convert to starch crystals and the pear tastes "gritty." Only those not pecked by birds or stung by a codling moth will keep. One bad pear will release too much ethalyne gas and spoil the whole bunch! The Yellow Bartlett was traditionally know as the Williams' Bon Chrétien pear and is thought to have originated in the 1770's. In 1985, ~80% of the pears grown in the United States were Bartlett pears. More history here.

New Potatoes

French Fingerlings and Russian Bananas. We just dug up a few of each to see how they are coming along. So far=delicious!

Sunflower Seeds...

...have been eaten by people in North America for the past 5000 years. More here.

Pesto Anyone?

Overwhelmed by the bounty of summer, we've started stocking up for winter around here =*) Click post title for recipes.