husband and I, took a brief yet romantic trip to the garden center and bought some plants for our garden. This sort of trip may not seem to be romantic to most of you, but it is for us. Anyway, the bare root roses, berries, and fruit trees have been out in force for the last month or so, and we excitedly picked over the remaining offerings and found a variety of pear that we had never heard of before, the 'Kieffer' pear. We all enjoy pears, and since we have a few apple trees that seem to be doing well, we decided to give this tree a go. We have planted it in espalier fashion in a flower bed across from our chicken run, which I hope will provide some much needed shade for our girls in the summer.
After looking it up on the interweb, this pear is a low chill variety, which is nice for our warm SoCal climate, and it is a cross between an Asian, and European pear, which means it won't be as soft as an eating pear like the Bartlett, but not as hard as an Asian pear. I'm intrigued by this variety and so I can't wait to taste it, but wait I must, perhaps two or three years. For my dear readers outside of SoCal, we have had a rather dry winter, and the evening temps have not fallen much below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, for Whittier anyway. I feel fortunate that we can enjoy such ambient temperatures while most of the nation is still under a blanket of the cold white stuff. Since our gardening season starts early, and ends late, it can be a gardeners paradise. But that also means we are limited to what kinds of fruits will grow here, those that require a much deeper chill to perform at their best, can often bring much disappointment in their yields.
Thanks to this variety's deep rich color, that means they are loaded with phytonutrients that are supposed to help prevent cancer, which is a nice bonus, but something that probably becomes irrelevant after one adds a ton of sugar to them for making jam or baking a pie!
Their canes are more upright than the Jewel raspberry, so they don't require any staking, and they don't sucker, which is nice since they share the same barrel as the Jewel and some kind of black berry we got last year. They are, according to most grower sites, a mid-season berry. Honestly, why can't growers tell you what "mid-season" is? On the packaging of our purchase, it says that is it a late-season berry. Again, I guess I will just have to wait and see when they yield for us, if they do at all, remember, I haven't had much success with berries.
And because of that, I have committed myself to not using anymore systemic fertilizers/pesticides on my roses, just so I can use them in edible recipes. I always hated using that stuff anyway, because it stinks to high heaven, and I usually felt sick after working with it, so good riddens!