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Tue 30 Nov, 2010 10:49 am
I have a bartlett pear tree that bears a second crop of pears in the late fall. While the first crop of pears are large, the second crop are very, very small. Are they of any use, I mean, can you eat them?
@CathyMcW,
They may not be all that great for eating out of hand, but they'd make some dandy pear jam.
A neighbor here has a peach tree that is notorious for producing peaches no bigger than the size of a large ping pong ball. Not much for eating, but when she gave us a couple bags full of them, I made a wonderful peach butter.
This recipes uses the canning process:
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/grandmas-pear-preserves/Detail.aspx
If you've never canned before, here's a step by step recipe and instructions with photos of each step:
http://www.pickyourown.org/pearjamandjelly.htm
And here's a recipe for pear freezer jam that doesn't require canning.
http://frugalliving.about.com/od/recipes/r/Pear_Jam.htm
That's what I did, I made a freezer version of the peach butter jam.