Asian Pears: The Ultimate RARE Fruit You Must Try Growing!

To make traditional butterscotch, add butter, sugar, molasses, and water to a saucepan, heat to 250 degrees, pour into a lined heatproof pan, sprinkle with salt, and let cool. Or, plant this tree in your backyard and harvest your own fresh butterscotch candy. As a bonus, this butterscotch candy is actually good for you, and on today's video, I'm going to show you how to do this right now. If you're new to the channel, please subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear. What if you could grow a tree in your yard that was cold-hardy, heat-tolerant, rarely bothered by insects and most diseases, that produced fruit that tasted just like butterscotch, all on a compact semi-dwarf tree? Well, you can, and I'm willing to bet that most of you watching this video have never tasted this fruit before, especially if you live in the United States. I'm talking about the Asian pear. We are all familiar with pears, but most of us don't know there are two distinct types of pears, European pears and Asian pears. The pears we in the United States are most familiar with are European pears. European pears are known for their soft, buttery texture and sweet flavor. They are pyramid-shaped, and the varieties that we are most familiar with that are are the soft, green-skinned Bartlett pear and the brown-skinned Bosque pear. Asian pears are quite different. They are often referred to as apple pears because of their spherical, apple-like shape. Unlike the rich, buttery texture of a European pear, Asian pears are crisp and mild. You've probably seen them in grocery stores before, but you passed right by them due to their odd appearance and their high price. You see, European pears should not be allowed to ripen on a tree. Tree-ripened European pears become gritty and poorly flavored. Instead, European pears should be harvested when they reach mature size and the color of their fruit changes from green to yellow or a warm shade of brown, depending on the variety that you're growing. And the fruits feel in your hands, well they should shift from very hard to just solidly firm. From there, the pear will be stored at room temperature for 7-10 days to naturally soften, just like we would an avocado. Because European pears are picked when very firm, they make an excellent commercial crop and they can be packed and travel well with minimal bruising. Ah, but Asian pears are different. They must be fully ripened on the tree and they are ready to eat at the moment of harvest. As an Asian pear's fruit ripens, their skin will change from green to yellow or a warm shade of brown, similar to a European pear. You'll have to keep an eye on them as they ripen to notice the very subtle color changes. You'll know the fruit is ready for harvest when the stem begins to separate slightly from the tree and when you bend the fruit and the stem back, it should easily pop off with little resistance. Because Asian pears must fully ripen on the tree and are therefore a fully ripened fruit at the point of harvest, they do not ship well and they are highly prone to bruising. This makes it difficult and expensive to pack and ship them. They are typically wrapped in these funny little foam wrappers for protection and often displayed wearing these wrappers in grocery stores. Because of this process, Asian pears are very expensive and they often sell for $2-$3 each. Yes, each. Because of this high cost, cultures that are in the know about how awesome Asian pears are often have to plant Asian pear trees in their backyard because, let's face it, if these fruits are important to your cooking culture, you'll go broke buying these in stores. Blended Asian pears are often critical ingredients in Asian-inspired meat marinades because they provide unbelievable tenderization and a delicious, mildly sweet flavor. Asian pear trees are both cold hardy and heat tolerant, thriving in hardiness zones 5-9, in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees, and as high as 100 degrees. This makes them suitable for planting almost anywhere in the United States. They are naturally a semi-dwarfing tree. If you let them grow completely unpruned and wild, they will typically grow to be about 15 feet tall by 15 feet wide. However, they can easily be maintained at 8-10 feet tall and wide with annual pruning, as I will show you later in this video. They are rarely bothered by insect pests. Your biggest problems are going to be possums, raccoons, and deer, because they want the delicious fruit just as much as you do. Asian pear trees also rarely suffer from disease. Although pears in general can contract fire blight, most Asian pears have a natural resistance to it, so long as you're paying attention during the blooming cycle. And it can be easily managed with copper spray applications at bud break, and worst-case scenario, managed by pruning off the affected areas if the symptoms become visible. I've had fire blight issues with my apple trees before. In fact, all three of my apple trees back here, several years ago, got an infestation of fire blight, and I had to prune them to manage them. Yet my Asian pear tree that's right here, really close to them, was never affected, knock on wood, despite the close proximity. Out of the dozens of fruit tree species that I'm growing in my yard, the Asian pear has probably been one of the absolute easiest. The only fruit trees that I've been growing that have been lower maintenance are my Asian persimmons and my feijoa trees. So other than those two, this is pretty much the third easiest tree that I am growing. One of the few downsides to growing pear trees in general is that many are not self-fertile, meaning you'll need at least two unique varieties where they bloom at the same time for cross-pollination. Some varieties claim to be partially self-fertile. For example, some people claim that hosui, nuwaseki, also known as 20th century, are partially self-fertile. However, some nurseries refuse to list any Asian pear as self-fertile and recommend you grow two unique varieties no matter what. Even if your climate does make an Asian pear tree partially self-fertile, they're going to do a whole lot better if they have a companion. So I would plan on planting two unique varieties at a minimum. Now, some gardeners may want to know, can European and Asian pears pollinate each other? That way, I don't have to have two Asian pear trees. I can have a European pear tree and an Asian pear tree and have the best of both worlds. Well, the answer to that question is technically yes. They can pollinate each other. And there are some named varieties out there that are hybrid fruits between European and Asian pears. But the issue is, the problem is, that most Asian pears and European pears do not flower at the same time. And if the flower overlap does not happen at the same time, there can't be cross-pollination. So you'd have to theoretically plant a late-blooming Asian pear with an early-blooming European pear because most Asian pears bloom well before European pears. And also keep in mind, your bloom cycle can vary based on your location and your climate. So just because two varieties may work in California doesn't mean the two varieties are going to work the same way in New Jersey because of the climactic differences. So unless you have a neighbor or someone locally that is verifying the compatibility of a blooming period, I wouldn't necessarily take that risk. But that being said, I did find a loophole. I am growing one single Asian pear tree that does self-pollinate. And I can't wait to show you how I did this because this is honestly one of my favorite things I've ever done in my garden. I know that my backyard can sometimes look big on camera, but that's just a trick by the lens of the camera. It's a pretty typical 8,000 square foot suburban residential lot. Now, I knew I wanted to grow Asian pear trees, but I had never actually tasted one before. And I was running out of space in my backyard, and I didn't want to dedicate space to multiple Asian pear trees. So I decided to grow a multi-grafted tree. Three years ago, I bought a chojuro Asian pear tree, and I ordered scion wood for two other varieties, hosui and Korean giant. Then I grafted the budwood of the two other varieties onto the chojuro tree. I documented this entire thing on video, and I'll link to that video both above and down in the video description if you want to see how I did it. It is really cool. And the end result was this, a three-tiered espaliered Asian pear tree. The two low branches that you see tied to the steel cable right here, which are called cordons, well, they are a variety called hosui. The second cordon, the second tier right here, is a variety called Korean giant. And the top branches right here, the top cordon, is the actual chojuro variety of the tree that I allowed to grow and take hold up at the top. And it's taken several years for this to come to fruition. The very first year, the grafts had to take. The second year, the grafts, well, they put out lots of wood that I then tied to the respective cordons. And then this was the year that they actually started sending off fruiting spurs, and they actually started producing flowers. So the chojuro up top is the least mature because they were the last ones to grab hold. And the hosui at the bottom is the most mature because apical dominance means the growth hormone starts at the bottom and works its way up. So the lower grafts, well, they took first, and then they subsequently got smaller as the tree went up. So the bottom cordon right here, the hosui, set a ton of fruit because they were the most mature. But unfortunately, I lost all of the fruit A possum or a raccoon came in the middle of the night and pilfered every single one. But luckily, the Korean giant right here was too high for them, and I protected them with this piece of agricultural fabric right here. And I have a few beautiful fruits. The chojuro up here, well, because it's the least close, it's the least furthest along, next year, this is going to fruit for me. But it actually did flower and fruit, but it wasn't mature enough and it dropped all the fruits. So everything's working perfectly. Everything's flowering at the same time, and I'm getting cross-pollination on one single tree because there are three unique varieties growing on it. Now, of course, you don't have to go through the trouble of making a multi-grafted fruit tree. You can just plant two trees fairly close together, about eight to 10 feet apart, and prune them each year, and they'll grow fine right next to each other. Or you could actually purchase a multi-grafted Asian pear from a nursery already. A lot of nurseries carry pear trees that are grafted two-in-one, three-in-one, sometimes even four-in-one. I'll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you tons of different online nurseries that you can buy from that often stock multi-grafted fruit trees. I just like doing this cool stuff to show you that there is always a solution to a problem. And also, look how small you can keep this tree. This tree is over three years old, and you can keep it small through these simple techniques like espalier and annual pruning. Now, in the words of the great American philosopher Mr. T, I ain't got time for this jibber-jabber. How's the thing taste? Well, I'm very happy to report that these are the first Asian pears that I've ever had fully ripen on the tree that weren't stolen from me by a possum or a raccoon. So we're going to find out together. And I've been watching these ripen over the course of a month. They started off as green and kind of shiny, and now they are a yellow, more matte style color where they've kind of lost their glossiness. And that usually indicates that they are ripe and ready to go. So if I did this correctly, if I lift up this big boy right here, it should pop right off. And it did with almost no effort. Look at the size of that son of a gun right there. That thing must be a pound. But let's find out because I brought a scale. Now let's go ahead and weigh this. This is going to be huge. Wow, one pound, 0.1 ounces. I said it was a pound. Well, I don't think you can get any closer than that. That is pretty impressive. What are the chances? And now we have to taste test this thing because it's starting to get dark. And before I do that, don't worry, I'm using one of these very fancy knives that when you cut, it doesn't cut your skin. Just kidding. So let's cut into this pear right here. Oh, this is going to be good. So juicy. Wow, look at that. And that is why they call it an apple pear. At first glance, you wouldn't even know that that is a pear. That is an Asian pear. It looks like an apple. Now let's try a slice. And you may be thinking, why are you cutting wedges? Why don't you just bite right into the pear? Well, that's because I want to share this with my wife. So let's give this a taste. This is my first ever taste of this Asian pear. Wow, that is completely different than a European pear. This is almost like an exact cross between an apple and a European pear, if you can imagine. It has the flavor of a pear with the texture of a very, very crisp apple. Just listen to this. This is incredible. This is fantastic. The more I eat it, the more I like it. And I'm fairly convinced that this wasn't 100% ripe. It probably could have went a couple more weeks, but I'm new to harvesting Asian pears. But this has a very, it has a very mild flavor. It's not as buttery as a European pear. And it's not quite as sweet. But it is, it has like a very light, almost a caramel undertone to it. It tastes like a very mild, like a blend of honey and butterscotch. It really does taste like butterscotch. This is absolutely delicious. And it is so low effort and so easy to grow and so versatile. This is a kind of thing that you can chop up in any salad. Like I said, it's an integral part in a lot of Asian marinades, specifically Korean cooking. A lot of their beef marinades, they actually take an Asian pear and they put it in a blender and they blend it along with the other ingredients. And it is magic at tenderizing meat. That's one of my favorite uses of Asian pears. But I'll tell you, just eating this right off the tree, you can't go wrong with this. This is, you have to grow this thing. I'm gonna finish this off camera. That Asian pear kept getting better and better with every single bite I took. Just like a spicy dish as you eat it and it builds and builds on you, it got more and more intense as I kept taking more and more bites. And by the time I finished half of that enormous pear, I was floating around in honey butterscotch heaven. That is an absolutely incredible fruit right there. And because it's so light and crisp and airy, you could sit there and you could eat half a dozen of them. That was an absolutely incredible experience and I'm so glad I could share it with you all on camera. So if you're looking for a very easy, low-maintenance tree to grow that thrives in both the temperate regions and the subtropics, this Asian pear is an absolute no-brainer. If you have room for it, make more room. In fact, now I kind of wish I planted two trees because that was so good, I would love to have more harvests of that amazing fruit. So everybody, I sure hope you found this video helpful and it motivated you to go out and do some research and hopefully get yourself a couple of Asian pear trees because that was incredible. If you did enjoy it, please make sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel and please ring the notification bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these. For any of the products that I featured in this video, I'll place direct links to them down in the video description for your convenience. For everything I use in real life, in my entire yard and garden, that is all linked in my Amazon storefront. So expand the video description, click on the Amazon storefront link and you'll see everything I use in my yard and garden in real life. And while you're down there, please consider checking out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support my channel. I just released a whole bunch of new custom designs. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Guess where Dale is? Dale is at the beach and it's a nice, cool, cloudy day. Can you believe we got such a nice day in August, buddy? Usually we're burning up at the beach here and Dale was so good in the car and he actually gets in the water now. What do you think, buddy? Are you enjoying yourself? There's so many good sniffs at the beach. All right, buddy, let's continue our walk.