Picking Chinese Quince: Ripeness, Handling and What to Do With Fruit You Cannot Eat

Judging ripeness on a fruit that never softens

Chinese quince is among the last things to come off any garden tree, well after apples and pears, and the fruit gives you almost no ordinary ripeness cues. It does not soften, it does not sweeten in the hand, and it does not part easily from the branch. The three signs that do work are color, scent and stalk, and you should have all three before picking rather than any one of them.

Color first: the skin turns from a hard green through pale lemon to an even, deep, waxy yellow, sometimes with a bronze flush on the sunny side. The waxy feel is real and useful; the surface becomes faintly greasy to the touch as it finishes, and that greasiness is a better indicator than color alone in a dull autumn.

Scent second, and it is the most reliable of the three. A ripe Chinese quince is one of the most powerfully perfumed things you can grow, floral and faintly of pineapple, and a single fruit will scent a room within a day. If you have to lift the fruit to your face to smell anything, leave it on the tree for another week or two. Stalk last: a finished fruit parts from the spur with a firm upward twist, while an unripe one has to be wrenched, and wrenching tears the spur that carries next year's flowers.

It is inedible raw, and that is not a fault

Nobody should bite into one. Raw Chinese quince is woody, mouth-drying and astringent, hard enough that a sharp knife struggles to halve it, and it stays that way however long you leave it on the tree or on a shelf. This is not a sign that you picked early, that the season was poor or that the tree is the wrong sort. The species simply is not a dessert fruit, and every good use it has starts with slicing it up.

Tell anyone who sees a bowl of them and reaches out. The fruit looks like a very large pear and smells extraordinary, so the assumption that it can be eaten is entirely natural and the disappointment is what makes people write the tree off.

The uses that do work all rely on time rather than heat alone. Thin slices layered with an equal weight of sugar or honey in a jar draw out a fragrant syrup over a few weeks, which is then diluted with hot or cold water. The same slices packed into a neutral spirit make a strongly scented cordial over several months. Long slow cooking with sugar turns the flesh translucent amber and sets very hard because the fruit is loaded with pectin, so it makes a firm jelly or a sliceable paste without any added setting agent. Keep the cores and pips in the pan and lift them out before potting.

One whole fruit set in a bowl indoors will scent a hall or a room for two to three weeks and is a genuinely worthwhile use for the fruit that is too marked to process.

Picking a fruit that weighs two pounds

Everything about the harvest is governed by mass. A fruit of twelve ounces to two pounds (350-900 g) that drops five to twelve feet (1.5-3.6 m) onto paving bruises deeply, and the flesh under the bruise browns within a day or two. On stone or a hard path it can chip the surface, and it will dent a car roof or crack a cold frame. So pick before the tree drops it, and take the weight in your hand at every stage.

1. Pick on a dry day Wet fruit going into store rots. If it has rained, wait a day for the skins to dry on the tree rather than wiping them, since rubbing marks the waxy surface.
2. Take the whole weight before you twist Cup the fruit in one hand and support it fully, then twist upward with the other. Never let the spur take the weight as the fruit comes free, or you will tear off the flowering wood with it.
3. Use a ladder rather than a fruit picker Long-handled pickers cannot hold this weight and drop the fruit into the net or onto the ground. Work from a stable ladder or step and hand each fruit down.
4. Lay them in a single layer Line a shallow crate with cloth and set each fruit down individually, stalk upward, not touching. Do not stack, and never tip fruit from one container into another.
5. Sort as you go Anything split, deeply bruised, scarred or stalkless goes into a separate box for processing within a few days. One rotting fruit will spoil a whole tray.
6. Clear the windfalls Collect anything that has already dropped on the same visit. Use it at once if it is sound and remove it from the garden if it is not, because fallen fruit left under the tree carries rot into next season.

Storing, and keeping it away from other food

Sound, undamaged fruit keeps for one to two months in a cool, dark, airy place at 34 to 45F (1-7C), which for most people means a shed, a garage or an unheated back room. Lay it in a single layer, not touching, stalk upward on a slatted shelf or tray, and look over the trays every couple of weeks, taking out anything that has begun to soften or brown. Do not refrigerate it; the flesh goes mealy and the perfume is lost.

The perfume is also the reason it must be stored on its own. It is volatile and extremely strong, and it moves straight into anything nearby. Apples and pears in the same room take on the flavor within days, and anything containing fat, such as butter, cheese or eggs, absorbs it and becomes unpleasant. A room where the quince is the only thing kept is the right place.

A heavy year is best dealt with by processing early rather than by hoping the store will hold. Syrup, cordial, jelly and paste all keep far longer than the raw fruit, and slices freeze well raw if you have no time in the week you pick. Fruit that was already marked when it came off the tree should go into the pan first and never into the store.

Record the picking dates, the number of fruit and the total weight from each tree, alongside the flowering date you noted in spring. The gap between those two dates is remarkably consistent from year to year on a given site and will let you predict your own harvest window within a week or so after two or three seasons.