Pendulous Pears, Thanks to the Major

I was just thinking that the harvest season had pretty much drawn to a close, when a trip to Woolston, passing Peartree Green en-route, revealed that we had missed a trick.

They do say, Walnuts and Pears you plant for your heirs, and the ancient Pear tree that was planted by the Mrs Cutler OBE Mayor of Southampton in 1951 was absolutely smothered with ripe fruit.

We discovered this lovely tree a few years ago and have been visiting it ever since. The pears are small, firm, round and beautifully sweet. My children call them Snack Pears. Mrs Cutler is no relative of ours, but we figured that she would be delighted to find that the fruit was going to be put to a good use.

My son and I zipped back up to the tree after his Sunday rugby training, there was a fair few Pears on the ground already and the fruit was suitably ripe, so we set about picking a large bag full.

In about 20 minutes we collected about 15 Kgs, which is quite a lot for a fully grown adult to lug back, let alone a 9 year old boy. However, I’m sure that my fruit based strength and conditioning program will eventually benefit his contribution to the Trojans team.

There is still heaps of fruit left on the tree, if anybody else wants to pick some but you would be wise to use a fruit picking pole, as you should not climb old fruit trees as the branches can snap catastrophically without warning.