I have 2 pear trees, several Japanese quince bushes, lots of red raspberry bushes and some wild-type black raspberries, some gooseberry bushes and strawberries.
The pear trees need a lot of spraying, so I usually just let them go and eat the few that aren't riddled with worms and black spots; the squirels and hornets enjoy them. The gooseberries have a funky taste that I'm not crazy about but I freeze them and usually mix them with cranberries to pad out cranberry sauce, but they also taste good when sauteed with beef, making a flavorful gravy. But most of all I LOVE the berries and eat raspberries 3X a day for that glorious few weeks that they are producing. I make red raspberry jam, strawberry jam and a red/black/strawberry jam mixture that I call Triple Berry Jam. This Fall I tried mixing quince sauce with frozen strawberries and it made the BEST jam, sweet and tart together and a beautiful light red color! I sell my jam at a little Saturday market in the summer, along with small watercolor paintings. The jam goes faster than the paintings!
