First pear

I have grown from seed and planted many apples and a few pear trees in the last 10 years, some with success, some without, but I have never had luck with pear trees. I bought 2 from Gertens 2 years ago and low and behold, last night I discovered my first pear. I had a few flowers on this tree last year, but no dice, a few more flowers this spring, but I didn’t think it would do anything. Last night I was doing some maintenance on the tree and to my surprise I see this. I almost fell off the ladder

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Nice! I want to plant some fruit trees next spring but not sure what I want to plant. I’m for sure going to have a few apple trees and was thinking about pear trees too, but not sure how’d they grow in our environment. What are some other options for Minnesota fruit trees?

There was a house down the street from our last home that had a few productive pear trees (though they didn’t take care of them). Prior to that, I’d never seen pears grown in MN.

That looks like a good one, Sticker!

How old do you think this pear tree was?

We planted four pears this spring, only about 12″ tall so I’m not expecting much for a couple years. We planted 5 or so apples the same size last spring and a couple of those have taken off. No fruit yet though.

We get most our fruit trees from this site, which claims they are ‘wild’ pear and apple trees that don’t require spraying. The verdict is still out.

oikostreecrops.com

I am guessing the tree was 4 years old when I got it, so 6 years old now, but that is just a guess.