It’s like the alligator of kitchen appliances. It doesn’t need to evolve.
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Along with this good fellow - not quite as old, but well over 100 years and still as good as the day patented:
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We have one of those as well! But ours looks considerably more beat up.
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Asian pears for the dehydrator. In the foreground -what is most likely a mix of Korean and Yoinashi (from our 4-way), and in the background – Shinseiki.
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These are brilliant!! Keep it up…
Oooh, what do you do with them once they’re dehydrated? Do you snack on them as is?
I have one that was my mother’s. I’d use it more often if it didn’t always get shoved to the bottom back of the ground level cabinet. It really does a good job when I can find it
This is the first time I’ve tried drying Asian pears. They dried well, and the flavor comes through, but they are very, very sweet. Sweeter than I typically crave in a snack. However, if you combine a bite of the dried pear with a bite of tarter dried apple - well then, yum! We like to take a small handful of fruit and nuts when we hike in the morning, and these will fit into that program nicely, as long as they’re mixed in with something to temper the sweetness. I’m also tempted to try some dried-pear-and-dried-apple muffins soon.
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I hear that. Mine, when not in use, lives wrapped in plastic and stored on top of a stand-up freezer. We have two dryers and over 40 trays, so that’s a lot of digging out and un-wrapping each season. I kinda have to force myself to do it, and then always try to get a few projects in before cleaning the beast and tucking it away for the next year.
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a masterpiece.
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I was very surprised that 4 of my 7 seeds germinated! Will bring them to work for the winter, as they are far too delicate to survive my cold and dry house.
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European pears. The variety is “Orcas”. So much easier to harvest than Asian pears, which must be picked at peak of ripeness and will ripen no further once picked. The Euro pears, OTH, when ready will pop off the tree when lifted and then do the final ripening wrapped in paper on the counter.
I see a French pear cake and some pear jam in my future.
Also, we’re trying to get back in the raspberry game. They grew like weeds at our old place in the city, but we’ve not had much luck where we are now. We’ve grown them in several locations around the property here, but they’ve never thrived for more than a year or two. Now we’ve got them in raised beds (takes a ladder to harvest), and so far - so good. These are a fall-bearing variety, our favorite type.
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Well done! The bigger plants can take some cool and dry. Mine (2-3 feet tall) live in a south-facing windowsill which gets chilly in the winter, especially at night. The house is heated with a wood stove. I just have to watch the watering like a hawk; if they dry out too much, they die easier than most woody plants.
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Beauties! Does their flavor resemble other pears we might know? Do you know if it’s resistant to Fireblight (a plague around here)?
There’s so much one can do with pears, like putting a shaded bottle over a young fruit, so it gets big in the bottle. Then, pickle it to amaze and confuse friends as they examine a pear which could not have possibly fit through the bottle’s neck. Yet… there it is!
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I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. I’ve eaten so few fresh pears in my life, I don’t think I could tell one European variety from another. This one tastes like a pear to me! 
The Orcas variety is supposed to be disease and scab resistant. We selected this one as it was first “discovered” here in the maritime PNW, and we figured it would do well. This is the first year we’ve had a real harvest (we got two pears last year). We thinned the tree pretty aggressively. Our neighbor has the same variety, but an older tree. He doesn’t thin and his tree is dripping with pears!
I love the trick of growing one in a bottle, and just might have to try it next year! 
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Anyone know what might be wrong with this eggplant that looked fine when I got it from my CSA in Northern California yesterday? Seemingly overnight it’s developing dimples near the blossom end, and then developing brownish areas! There is another one that seems fine, at least so far.
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It looks a bit like an anthracnose fungus infection, since the lesions appear round at the start. It’s a puzzler!
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