Saijo persimmon readiness with pictures

General Fruit Growing
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A person who lives around me has a huge Saijo persimmon tree with probably 500 fruit on them. I stopped by and spoke to him and they don’t even eat them. He told me I could help myself so I grabbed 6 which were easy access and went on my way. I was planning on going back this weekend to grab some more but it is supposed to reach down to 27 degrees tonight. Will that hurt the fruit or make it taste better? Should I go out of my way today and harvest what I can before the freeze? Should I bother picking the unripe ones and letting them ripen in my house?
I know this is short notice but I have had a super busy week.

thanks

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27F is fine, they will not freeze until 22F or so given how much sugar is in them.

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Thanks Scott,

I made it over there and picked about 10 that were soft. They are very good. I’ll try to get back with a ladder soon and harvest a bunch.

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Here is a picture of the persimmon tree. I think they are Saijo, but with no prior experience I can’t verify this.

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IMG_20171110_161651221_HDR1456×2592 1.09 MB

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IMG_20171110_1617014571456×2592 1.09 MB

IMG_20171118_220700400
IMG_20171118_2207004002592×1456 481 KB

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I took Winnie, my middle daughter back today to pick some more.

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IMG_20171118_125645898_HDR1456×2592 1.17 MB

We picked around 50. About 15 of them are currently in a dehydrator. The owner of the tree said I could take them all, but I don’t know what I could possibly do with that many of them.

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IMG_20171118_131414324_HDR1456×2592 703 KB

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Good score! That tree is huge, and so are the fruits.

We have a wild 'simmon on the farm that produces a few small fruits. I tried a few this year, to the point of them almost being mushy, and they weren’t too bad, but they still had a little bit of pucker factor going on. They’re OK, but I don’t know if I’d be willing to plant a domesticated one. We have enough new fruit trees as it is!

Do those have any astringency to them?

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No, no astringency in the ones I tried. The first batch were pretty much a liquidy mush that would melt when I cut the tops off. They were super sweet and had a slight cinnamon like flavor. The new ones I picked looked more like the picture above and were able to be cut into slices and still hold their consistency. These ones were not as sweet as the mushy ones but still tasted good.

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