You can dry them, but I’ve yet to try dried ones that are as good as dried ripe Bosc pears.
@murky … yes I will have to learn all the ways i can preserve them… last fall i made a batch of pulp and made low sugar jam with that. That reminds me … i still have a pint of that in the freezer… i will get that out now and let it thaw so we can have some this weekend.
We eat low carb chaffles for breakfast occasionally… on weekends… and you could include some persimmon pulp in those.
I have a nice dehydrator and will try that too.
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Did you add some kind of acid to the jam for more flavor?
I’ve found it hard to get the moisture content right. I did a batch of dried ‘Simmons last summer and they molded pretty quickly. I like to freeze them, personally. People say that they lose their flavor in the freezer, but that’s not been my experience. I’ve been digging into the frozen ‘Mohler’ lately, and it’s really tasty. Also has a great texture frozen, like fruity bonbons.
There is a persimmon festival in Mitchell Indiana. There are some recipes from past years: PERSIMMON RECIPES – 75th Mitchell Persimmon Festival
@murky … the low sugar chia jam recipe that i use is posted in the … fruit in your kitchen category.
For one pint of jam… the juice of half a lemon is added.
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I remember someone here last year had… i think it was a kasandra persimmon… that they had harvested like 400 fruit from and it still had about that many left.
I have 12 trees grafted now with some of the best american and hybrid varieties… and i planted a IKKJ this spring too.
I can see the possibility of me being overwhelmed with persimmon fruit in a few years. Eat all you can, preserve all you can, load your family and friends up… perhaps sell some.
Oh well… before i start worrying about that… we will see just how many of these make it.
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Not a bad problem to have in my estimation.
I’m in a similar boat, though I’m zone pushing some of these varieties, for sure. My Mohler tree made well over 500 fruits last year, I figure. 2 Proks probably made another 300-400. The deer and raccoons have caught on. A buck was ripping whole branches down to get at the fruit last year. I figure they’ll disappear, one way or another. Perhaps I’ll sell some at some point, though I quite like the enjoyment of having the orchard as a sort of sanctuary. My attempts to make it a paying proposition have really detracted from that aspect, so I’ve resigned to leverage it differently. Instead of selling things- fruit, nursery stock- I give things away and use it as a way to forge connections with people. That part feels a lot more complementary to what I’m attempting to do ecologically and culturally - the growing part, that is, not culture in the social sense. The more I think about it though, it seems like the essence of culture, the root. Nothing says everything has to be utilized or converted into value. That framework leads to disappointment. Instead Id rather seek a state of plenty and let that unfold how it will.
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Could’'ve been me. I ended up harvesting ~1200 from one tree.
After a few false starts, I ended up following the following process: (1) Leave the ripe persimmons in a big closed bin with a cup of vodka; (2) Wait a week; then (3) Dry them. The vodka helped remove the last of the astringency. The drying helped preserve them. We’re still eating them – had some tonight.
This year I may try applying the vodka (ethanol) with a sprayer.
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My chickens love persimmons.
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@parkwaydrive … i saw a guy on youtube this week… harvesting american persimmons from some nice mature trees on his place.
They were too tall for him to reach most of the fruit… so he just kept the grass under them mowed and checked the ground around them and collected the fruit that had fallen.
He had two 5 gal buckets… one for chicken fruit… those that had been damaged, split cracked, stepped on by deer, etc… and another 5 gal bucket for the good fruit.
He collected about equal parts of each… both buckets were over half full.
His chickens loved the damaged fruit.
He made persimmon pulp from the good fruit and froze it in quart freezer bags.
When you have fruit in that kind of quantity… some is going go bad or get damaged…
Feeding that to livestock would be ideal…
Composting it would work too.
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@murky… my wife and I tried persimmon jam this morning… and it was OK, but not impressive.
Not nearly the flavor of the nice wild persimmons that went into it.
Perhaps the 8 minutes of simmering it… or the freezing for storage… it seems that most of the outstanding persimmon flavor was no longer there… it was sweet, and had a somewhat Figgie taste, but no tartness at all… which I would suppose would be normal for persimmons since they are not tart.
I would have never guessed it was persimmon jam… if I did not have it labeled as such.
There was absolutely no astringency… but nothing that really resembled that wonderful persimmon flavor either.
Perhaps persimmons are best used / preserved some other way than cooked/freezer jam.
TNHunter
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According to Claypool, most varieties of persimmon don’t retain their flavor for long in freezing, although a few do.
I’ve tried ice cream, jam and syrup with mine and the flavor goes fast. After a few weeks, the flavor disappears from the ice cream. The syrup worked out well over pancakes, even a year later…
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ZK looking good today.
My little wild DV near ZK is coming on out now.
It had some fruit on it last year and looks like it may this year too.
Just down the road from them… i found another wild DV … 6 inch diameter 35 ft tall…
I would think the chickens would love any throw aways! If you can protect them for the foxes and coyotes! Chicken pen at night May be essential. When I lived in Tn as a kid the foxes were very keen at how to catch a chicken. One morning my dad got up before the sunrise and took his double barrel 12 gauge out to watch for this red Fox. He heard the hogs being aroused as the chickens fed by the pigs. Then in a blink the Fox came darting through the pig pen, before my Dad could raise his gun the fox threw two chickens over his back as he galloped through the feeding chickens. Then the fox was too close to the hogs to shoot! As the Fox wheel around to gather his two chickens to trot away my Dad gave him both barrels and that was the end of the story for one red Fox. Of course we kids were very sorry about the kittens back in the den, but that was life on the farm back then about 1955!
So be prepared Trev, the Fox is very sly and efficient as a killing machine!
Dennis
Kent, wa
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I think Trev might know a thing or two about killing machines.
And foxes
The first fox I ever trapped was a nice red… back around 1977.
The pic below… is a much younger me… around 1979.
A couple gray’s… a nice bobcat… and a couple possum… one nights preditor hunting haul. Between trapping and preditor hunting… yes have taken care of several foxes, bobcats… yotes… and we do have all 3 here so free ranging would be risky for sure…
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Here’s a pic of some young american persimmon trees I picked up from someone on craigslist. He grew them from seeds acquired from John Hershey’s food forest in Downingtown, PA. They’re so tiny. Had beautiful black roots, longer than the top growth. Hopefully I can graft onto them next year.
Also started about 55-60 seeds I got on Etsy, advertised as a Jim Claypool mix. They’re growing in a root pruning planter box I threw together.
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