Pear
Pyrus communis
Long-lived orchard tree — nasturtium lures its codling moth aside.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 13 ft 1 in
- In-row spacing
- 13 ft 1 in
- Between rows
- 16 ft 5 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
Calendar (from your frost dates)
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 160 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- at the first fall frost
Growing
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Deep, fertile, well-drained
- Feeding
- A balanced spring feed, going easy on the nitrogen.
- USDA zones
- 4a–8b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Winter-prune free-standing trees, and summer-prune the trained forms.
Through the year
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–May Flowering
- May–Sep Fruit Set
- Sep–Oct Harvest
- Oct–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
Harvest
- When
- August to October depending on variety; trees crop in 4–6 years (sooner on quince rootstock). Crucially, pears are almost always picked mature-but-hard and ripened off the tree — tree-ripened pears go mealy and brown at the core.
- What to look for
- Pick when the fruit is full-sized, the skin has lightened slightly, lenticels (skin dots) turn brown, and the pear comes away with the lift-and-twist test — tilt it horizontal and it should snap free at the stalk. It will still feel rock hard: that's correct. Ripeness for eating is judged later by gently pressing the flesh beside the stalk — it yields when ready (the base can still be firm).
- How to harvest
- Lift the pear to horizontal and twist gently; keep the stalk attached. Handle like eggs — pears bruise invisibly and rot from the bruise in store. Long-arm pickers for tall standards.
- How often
- One or two passes per variety over about a week; early varieties (e.g. Williams) all come at once, later keepers can be staggered.
- Storing the crop
- Ripen indoors at room temperature over 4–10 days (a banana alongside speeds it); check the neck daily — pears go from perfect to sleepy in about a day. To hold them, keep picked-hard fruit in a cold place (near 0–4°C) and bring batches indoors to ripen as needed; late varieties like Conference and Concorde keep 1–3 months this way. Excess poaches, bottles, and dries well.
Companions
Clover, Nasturtiums, Tansy, Borage
Pests & problems
- Codling moth Its caterpillars tunnel to the core of apples and pears, leaving frass-filled exit holes. Hang pheromone traps from late spring and pick up windfalls promptly.
- Fire blight A bacterial disease of the apple-pear family: blossoms and shoots look scorched black and hang on. Prune 30 cm below visible damage, sterilizing tools between cuts.
- Rust Pear rust
- Scab Pear scab
- Pear midge
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Bats ChiropteraHunts Codling moth
A single bat takes hundreds of moths and mosquitoes in a night, and the moths are the parents of your cutworms, corn earworms and hornworms. Put up a bat box on a warm south wall, leave a night-scented corner unlit, and never spray after dark.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Codling moth
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
Did you know?
Pears ripen best off the tree — pick them firm and let them soften indoors.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com