October Medlar, Nefle De October

Day 206: The French varietal name had me puzzled. For one thing, I couldn't say it even after listening to Google Translate's robot repeating it multiple times, but I was surprised to see that "Nefle" was actually in its dictionary. It means...yep, you guessed it..."medlar." This, therefore, is the "October Medlar," which gives a clue as to when the fruit is fully developed. Note that I say "developed" as opposed to "ready for use," because medlars must have begun to decompose before they are edible. They should be left on the tree until a few hard frosts have occurred, or until they begin to drop naturally. That said, the story behind these two photos is that the friend who has supplied me with medlars in the past will be moving away this summer. In order to "keep medlar love alive" (as another friend put it), I took cuttings from her tree, hoping to propagate it from slips and/or grafts, but obviously, that puts picking medlars pretty far down the road. As a backup, I began searching for an affordable tree, and I wasn't having much luck. Behind the scenes, yet another friend was searching as well, and to my great astonishment, came up with a nursery within reasonable driving distance which had two varieties: Nefle de October and Breda Giant, both as two-year old grafted plants in one-gallon pots, and at half the price of the foot-long bare-root cuttings I'd found on my own. I called the nursery early Saturday morning, and headed out to be on their doorstep when they opened. Nefle de October is a mid-sized fruit, as opposed to Breda Giant. The "giant" varieties tend to be less flavourful, so I picked out a 3.5' tall Nefle which will go in the ground later this week. I keep telling myself that at my age, it's probably pointless to hope for enough fruit for a batch of jelly before I'm too old to make it, but the planting geas comes strong upon me when spring is in the air, a call I must obey.