Pears, pears and more pears

Pears grow well in Mississippi if you keep them watered a bit through the dry spells.  This year it seemed we had almost 2 months with little rain.  Trees are fairly drought-resistant, but eventually there comes a point when you start to wonder how much your trees can take.  I waited until the grass started looking a bit stressed and started watering then.

I have tried a variety of spray nozzles and devices to spray large areas.  This year I tried just using the hose with no nozzle.  My theory is that the water comes out in greater volume without a nozzle.  This seems to be far quicker for watering small plants.  I think it is about twice as fast.  I have also tried more precise spot watering of stressed grass.  Overall I think this is a useful technique.

In the past I would leave a sprinkler in the yard, go inside for about 15 minutes and then do out to move the sprinkler.  Some areas would receive more water than necessary and it took over 2 hours to do the front and back yard.  With spot watering and no nozzle I can finish a little quicker though I am standing outside the while time.




Several of my neighbors have sprinkler systems in their yards.  Their grass looks great, but such stuff doesn't seem to match my personality.  They also try to have mono-culture for their grass and tend not to favor food production in the yard.

My theory on grass is that anything that survives my poor lawn care probably deserves to live.  Some species are more likely to survive in my area than others, so I give them all a chance.

Oh, back to the pears!  I have 2 pear trees.  I think one is a Bartlett pear and the other is a "pineapple" pear or whatever the fairly common species is here.  The pineapple pears are big - frequently about 1 pound each.  The Bartletts are a bit smaller and have a slightly better taste.  Both trees have produced a lot of pears this year.  I can't eat even 1/4 of the pears, so I have given some away and some simply fall to the ground and rot.

The pears are far easier to grow well than apples and peaches.  I had about 20 or so small golden delicious apples this year.  They taste great, but they are small.  I have a red apple tree (Anna, I think) which has yet to produce an apple.  I will try doing something different with the apples next year.