At a glance
- Freshly picked medlars are rock hard and bitter; only bletting turns the flesh soft, sweet and aromatic.
- Harvest late, usually from late October to late November (CW 44 to 48), when the fruit is fully coloured but still firm.
- Frost is the classic trigger, but not a must: you can bring on bletting deliberately in a cool cellar without any frost.
- A medlar is ripe when it feels like a ripe persimmon and the flesh tastes of apple sauce with cinnamon and dates.
- The tree is fully hardy, self-fertile, and needs only a sunny spot and very little pruning.
There is hardly a fruit that demands so much patience and makes so little fuss about it as Mespilus germanica, the medlar. Anyone who bites into one in October usually spits it right out again: hard, woody, so bitter with tannins that your whole mouth puckers up. And that is exactly the point where most people give up and write the tree off as ornamental. Yet this is where the real story only begins. The medlar does not ripen on the tree but afterwards, in a process gardeners call bletting. Understand it, and you bring home a flavour that sits somewhere between apple sauce, dates and baked apple, one you will never find in a supermarket.
Why the medlar becomes edible only late
The medlar is one of the few fruits that must ripen after picking, in the botanical sense, to become edible. On the tree the flesh stays firm, sour and full of tannins. These tannins are what create the puckering, furry feel in your mouth. Only once the fruit is taken from the tree and stored does an enzymatic breakdown begin: starch turns to sugar, the cell walls soften, the tannins lose their bite. The rock-hard, greenish-brown ball becomes a soft, brown, almost jam-like flesh.
Experts call this process bletting. It has nothing to do with rot, even though a bletted medlar looks spoiled to the untrained eye at first. The skin turns wrinkled and dark, the inside mushy, but the smell stays fruity and pleasantly sweet. That state is exactly the goal.
The right time to harvest
The craft starts with the harvest, and this is where many make their first mistake. You do not harvest the medlar ripe, you harvest it hard. The best moment is late in autumn, usually from late October into late November (CW 44 to 48), when the fruit has taken on its full brown colour and the leaves are slowly falling. The fruit should be fully coloured and grown out, but still feel firm. Wait until the first cool nights have passed, because a short cold spell makes the cells more receptive to the later ripening process.
Pick on a dry day and cut the fruit off with a short stub of stalk rather than tearing it away. Every wound in the fruit wall is an entry point for mould, and during weeks of after-ripening every intact skin counts. Sort as you pick: fruit with bruises, cracks or worm holes does not go into storage but straight into the kitchen or onto the compost.
An old farmer's rule says you should wait to harvest until after the first frost. That works, but it is not the whole truth. Frost speeds up the process because the freezing water bursts the cell walls and sets the enzymatic breakdown in motion. But it is not essential, and anyone who waits too long on the tree risks the birds and wasps getting there first.
Bringing on bletting: with or without frost
There are two ways to a bletted medlar, and both reach the goal. The classic is the frost route: the fruit stays on the tree until after the first hard night frosts, or is picked and put in the freezer for one or two nights. The frost bursts the cells, and after thawing the flesh softens within a few days. The second way is the patient storage route with no frost at all, just as gardeners have done for centuries.
Frost is your helper with the medlar, not your enemy. The tree itself is fully hardy to around minus 25 degrees Celsius, and a few frosty nights on the fruit set off exactly the ripening process you want. So you do not need to cover anything or bring it indoors to protect the tree.
Harvest hard and sort
Pick the fully coloured but still firm fruit on a dry day. Set aside only flawless specimens; every bruise becomes a source of mould in storage.
Lay out cool and airy
Spread the medlars in a single layer, calyx down, on a rack, a slatted frame or in shallow fruit trays. A cool, airy room at around 4 to 10 degrees Celsius is ideal; a cellar, garage or frost-free shed works well.
Wait and turn
Give the fruit two to four weeks. Turn them every few days and remove anything that smells rotten or shows mould. A little straw or newspaper between the fruit keeps them dry.
Check for ripeness
The medlar is ready when it feels soft and yielding like a ripe persimmon and the skin is dark brown and slightly wrinkled. The flesh then almost slips out of the skin on its own.
The medlar tastes of the patience you put into it. Try it too early and you think it inedible; wait, and you find a delicacy.
Old gardener's wisdom
Site, tree and blossom
Anyone without a tree yet quickly becomes a fan. The medlar is an undemanding, picturesque garden tree with a gnarled habit, large leathery leaves and glowing autumn colour. It rarely grows taller than four to six metres and so fits smaller gardens too. A sunny, warm spot with deep, fresh-moist soil brings the best yields; it will not tolerate waterlogging.
A great advantage for the home garden: the medlar is self-fertile. A single tree bears reliably, you need no second one as a pollinator. Its large, solitary white flowers open only late in May, when the dangerous late frosts are usually over, which is why crop losses from blossom frost are rare. Pruning is sparing: a light maintenance cut in late winter (February to March, around CW 6 to 13) is quite enough, because the flowers sit at the tips of the short shoots.
When buying, it pays to look at the variety. Medlar 'Nottingham' is a proven, aromatic variety with smaller fruit. If you want large fruit, reach for Medlar 'Dutch Large-Fruited' or Medlar 'Macrocarpa'. The variety 'Royal' is considered especially heavy-bearing. All are grafted, usually onto quince or hawthorn, and bear after three to five years depending on the rootstock.
Mespilus germanica
- Familie
- Rose family (Rosaceae)
- Standort
- Sunny, deep fresh-moist loam, no waterlogging
- Saison
- Harvest late October to November · CW 44 to 48
- Wasserbedarf
- Medium
- Frosthärte
- Hardy to around minus 25 degrees Celsius
What bletted medlars become
Once bletting is reached, you have a short window of a few days. The simplest thing is to spoon the raw flesh out of the skin, as you would a persimmon. It then tastes like a baked-apple sauce with dates and a note of cinnamon. If you have larger amounts, you process them further.
- Medlar jelly
The classic. The tannin-rich, pectin-heavy flesh sets beautifully on its own and yields an amber-coloured, tart-sweet jelly that goes well with game and cheese.
- Medlar purée and compote
Sieved and lightly sweetened, bletted medlars make a fine purée that can be preserved or frozen. A squeeze of lemon lifts the flavour.
- Spooned raw
For a quick treat: simply cut off the top and spoon out the soft flesh. The hard pips stay behind.
- Medlar liqueur and chutney
In north-western Europe traditionally set as a liqueur, or cooked down with onions and spices into a savoury chutney that keeps for a long time.
Bletted and rotten lie close together. If a fruit smells sour-fermented, alcoholic or musty rather than fruity-sweet, or shows furry mould, it belongs on the compost. Trust your nose and eye: healthy bletting smells pleasant, rot does not.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
The most common mistake is impatience: trying too early and deciding the fruit is inedible. The second is the opposite, namely forgetting the fruit too long on the tree or in storage until it rots. Between the two lies the narrow window of bletting. A third mistake is storage that is too warm: in a heated kitchen the fruit ripens unevenly and moulds faster. Cool and airy is the rule. And finally: never harvest in the wet and never store damp, because mould is the only real enemy in this patient game.
Common questions about the medlar
Can you eat medlars straight off the tree?
No, freshly picked medlars are rock hard, sour and full of tannins. Only after bletting, that is after one to four weeks of storage or after frost exposure, does the flesh become soft, sweet and edible.
Does the medlar really need frost to become edible?
Frost helps but is not strictly necessary. It bursts the cell walls and speeds up ripening. You can also reach bletting entirely without frost by storing the hard-harvested fruit cool and airy for a few weeks.
When do you harvest medlars?
Late in autumn, usually from late October to late November (CW 44 to 48), when the fruit is fully coloured but still firm. You harvest it hard, not soft; the ripeness only comes during storage.
How do I tell that a medlar is bletted?
It feels soft and yielding like a ripe persimmon, the skin is dark brown and slightly wrinkled, and the flesh smells fruity-sweet of apple sauce. Firm, green or smelling sour-fermented, it is either not there yet or already too far gone.
Does the medlar need a second tree for pollination?
No, the medlar is self-fertile. A single tree bears reliably, no pollinator is needed. That makes it ideal for small gardens with room for just one fruit tree.
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