Time to Harvest Nashi (Asian Pear)

We have been waiting for this week all summer!  The Nashi (Japanese for "pear") are ready and perfect for picking!  Our home is situated in a subdivision which was formerly a farm full of Nashi and peach trees.  The farm was owned by the Akagi family.  How lucky we were to have Nashi trees in our backyard that were mature and producing nicely when we moved into the neighborhood!  We take care of them and prune, thin every season and find that if we take good care we can have a really nice harvest every year unless the spring brought on storms when the blossoms were still on the trees.  Now and then we have a poor harvest due to bad weather in the spring, but it's rare.

Here is some of our bounty from yesterdays' picking!  These fruit are fully ripe when they turn yellow but are very good even when they have a little green still showing.  They are simply juicier and sweeter when yellow.  Once they turn yellow,  get them in a very cool storage or the refrigerator.  They will keep at least a month in a cool/cold area (some say 3 months, but by then the texture starts to change and they get a little soft).  I have tried to make juice/jelly before and I must say I prefer them in the RAW - just cut one and eat it or put it in a nice salad!  The juice/jelly simply require too much sugar to make it tasty in my opinion.
Everyone loves them!
They are juicy and crispy pears!  The kids love them and we've never shared them with anyone who didn't like them!  Yesterday when we were picking, several people walked by our fence line where a few trees hang over the fence.  One apologized -said that he picked our fruit while walking the day before and the other was a biker that just said "Can I have one of your asian pears? I love them!"  Of course, we said!  We understand that our trees are about 30 years old and they are of the Twentieth Century variety.  These go for about a buck a piece at Costco, so we are grateful to have them so plentiful in our yard and we love to share them with friends so if you come over in September, bring a bag with you and grab a few!