Pears!

Jams, jellies, fruits, vegetables – Each year in summer and fall, tons of people start the process of canning.

Before supermarkets and home freezers were common, canning was the only way to have vegetables or fruits over the winter, modern shipping, trade and commercial canneries have made the need for home canning unnecessary but many still enjoy the process, insert preferred reason here.

This year I decided to can some pears, I’ve helped with tomatoes and apple sauce before, but this was my first foray into fruit and… I liked it!

We used “organic”, “free-range” pears, collected from a semi-neglected tree out back.

Semi-neglected tree.

Usually the crows grab them with extraordinary speed the second they are fit to eat, but this year we beat them to it. So. Many. Pears.

A sampling of pears.

The amount we had to preserve seemed daunting. Did we have enough jars? This will take forever.

I was amazed at how little pear there is left after peeling, and cutting. In the end we ended up with 9 quarts and 9 pints (or if you prefer 12.8 Litres or 3.4 Gallons) of delicious pears in light syrup.