Green persimmons

2012 is the fifth season for our first persimmon tree in Mebane (a Fuyu), and it looks as though we could enjoy a harvest of dozens of fruits in October.
   We planted the tree in August 2008, a month after moving from Chapel Hill. It sported six or seven small green persimmons from the nursery, and we enjoyed them big, bright orange, and delicious that October (a few weeks earlier than we were accustomed to enjoying our Fuyu and Hachiya persimmons in Chapel Hill.

    The following year (2009) we were disappointed to have no harvest at all, but in 2010 we had a crop of about twenty. The photo to the right is borrowed from "And sometimes we just need to stop," in which I reported that

For dinner, I put slices on our Romaine salad, along with slices of tomato, cucumber, and radish, and some walnuts and almonds. Though not terribly sweet, persimmon slices seem quite sweet on a salad.

    Early next year (2011) the tree looked sick, or maybe it was suffering from the colder winter. We feared we might lose it. Again, there was no harvest. An every-other-year thing?

A persimmon tree clings to its fruit tenaciously;
you have to clip them off
(photo taken with Droid)

When I estimated this morning how many juvenile persimmons were on the tree, I was surprised that the number might exceed a hundred and sixty. Not even knowing yet that there were that many—and seeing how their weight seemed to be dragging the tree to one side—I decided to thin them out and trim a few branches from that side.
   Anyway, the persimmons would need more room to grow, and some would be destined to lose the competition for space. It would be a shame for the tree to have put energy into fruits that would ultimately be lost.

Our Fuyu persimmon tree after thinning the fruit and lightly pruning
(photograph taken next day with Nikon Coolpix P300)

I sliced two fruits and arranged the four halves
with five uncut fruits for a little "art"
(photo taken with Droid)