This is what an abundance feels like! Part I: pears

Everyone on the allotment/permaculture circuit agrees: this year has been excellent for fruit. No late frosts hammering the flowers or untimely rains preventing the pollinators from doing their magic. Everything went to plan this year and most of us have experienced an abundant harvest of some kind.

Our pear tree -- still don't know what type, we think it may be Williams Bon Chretien -- has cropped very heavily this autumn. As it's now very old, probably over 50 years, I'd consider it quite normal for it to crop biennially.

I'd had to put all exercise on ice for weeks following the surgery but harvesting the pears with my extendable fruit picker was my first outing and I was happy as Larry for hours.

Here's the result:

I discovered that they don't store well so I turned some of them into pear strudel.

(Before it went into the oven)

I didn't want the faff of making the dough and pulling it so I used Turkish yufka sheets, and if you use a mixture of milk and cream to soften the sheets, they work just as well. The topping is caramelised walnuts. I froze portions of it to have for dessert later on in the year.










Some of the others were turned into compote.

And the rest went into juice!