Customers often ask for pears that are yellow and ready to eat.
We pick them when they are still hard and green but after the sugar has started to develop, and they taste slightly sweet, because Pears don't keep long after they are ripe. They seem to be just perfectly ripe one day and then overripe the next. If they are picked sweet but still green, the ripening can be retarded for over one month. As long as they are kept cold they will ripen very slowly but pears will ripen rather quickly at room temperature. At home you can control the ripening by leaving most of the pears in the crisper of your refrigerator and bringing out just a few to ripen at room temperature.