Midnight Beauty Seedless Black Grape

I saw these in the supermarket the other day and only bought them because they were advertised as being 30% off (1.38€ for half kilo). I like grapes, they are great with a platter of italian cheeses and nuts, but as an everyday snack, grapes are not my favorite fruit. Midnight Beauty changed all that as they are the sweetest black grapes that I have ever tasted anywhere, and they don't have seeds!

I found out that these were developed by the agri-business company Sun World under registered trademark which means that growing them in my garden will never happen. No seeds, no seedling, and being a hybrid guarantees that I wouldn't get the same plant anyway.

There must've been a partridge in my pear tree

...and it took a couple of bites out of the fruit.

It's been 3 years since we planted the nashi pear tree but this is the first year where fruit, just 2 of them, has successfully managed to hang on and ripen. The tree stands at 3 feet tall - a little too small and still a lot too immature as I can't imagine how the branches could even support a normal-sized fruit. The texture was like a cross between crisp apple with pronounced graininess, but the flavor...it was amazingly sweet and was so intense that it tasted like apples, pears and roses all into one. Even at such a petite size, the pears were incredibly juicy.

Mornings have been a cool 14-16°C and warms up to a mild 23°C by late afternoon. I'm still picking about 5 pounds of tomatoes and a pound of beans each week. So far, 35.5 kilos/78+ pounds of tomatoes harvested. The green tomatillo plants have finally slowed down and I'll be freezing them for future use.

Average daytime temperature: 23°C / 73°F