You Can Grow That at the Beach?

Last weekend, I spent the weekend celebrating my friend Tony's 40th birthday. We went down to the Jersey Shore to visit his friend's beach house. The weather was absolutely perfect. I could really live here!! I love the beach. My wish one day is to have a beach house. That would be a dream! If only beach houses weren't ridiculously expensive. 

At our friend's beach house, they had the most stunning Bartlett pear trees.  Two in fact!  Look at the beauty of this tree!  I was so shocked how well this tree was growing in mostly sandy soil!  Our friend said this tree has been here for over 40 years!  There were so many pears on it, too bad none were ripe yet or I'd be eating these!

Some of the branches almost reached the ground with the weight of the heavy pears.  Makes it easy to harvest these!

Aren't these just gorgeous?  Our friend said that they get much bigger.  I asked him how these pears tasted when they were ripe, and then he said something that really shocked me.  I seriously almost fainted when he said the following, "I don't know. Mimi, I don't even like pears. I never eat the pears off this tree."  I was like.... "WHAT!?!"  I was like, oh my goodness, pears are my favorite.  I said if he let me come back to harvest all the ripe pears that I would make pear jam, pear tart, baked pear, I would seriously have a pear extravaganza.  I said to him, please don't let these pears go to waste, I'll definitely come down to harvest them.  I'd be too sad if they weren't eaten.

Not only did they have the most amazing pear trees, they also had the most amazing grapevines!  Check out how their grapevines have covered their entire back fence!  Totally amazing!!  I asked him what type of grapes these were and he didn't know.  He said when he was a little kid, his grandfather planted the pear trees, the grapevines, and had a huge backyard garden.  I said to him, "Wow, that is so cool. I would have loved to meet him.  I think we would have been really good friends!!"