Abundant Persimmon Trees | A Tour, Tasting and Chat about Varieties

Alright guys, it's time to talk a little bit more about persimmons. We actually have here a ripe proc that we're going to eat on camera. It's early October and I think the first video I did this year on proc came out maybe, well it didn't come out, it was at least filmed I think two or three weeks ago. So around the middle of September, which is amazing to start getting persimmons here in the Philadelphia area. I'm really happy with that. This is definitely a very, very early persimmon. I had struggled with a number of them actually getting ripe, so up until maybe this point I've not really enjoyed many of these, even though there was many more of them on the trees because the squirrels have been going insane. They've probably taken this year hundreds of apples and pears, hundreds of peaches, figs, they've taken pawpaw, they've just wrecked havoc on my yard. And so I don't understand how anybody could actually love squirrels that grows fruit. And so animals in my mind mean something entirely different when you actually grow food. And so I finally got myself a squirrel trap. This is I think a WCS is what they call it. Squirrel trap if I'm not mistaken. And so this thing is amazing. It is loaded right now because I need to have this tree protected. And underneath, on the inside, it's loaded with peanut butter at the top. And so what happens is they go inside and see that little pan right there at the bottom? They step on that and then it releases this spring and it instantly kills them. You can see, look, here's a persimmon that I was using as bait because the squirrels have been relentless. So I've killed about, I don't know, three-ish squirrels. And I know that's maybe a little bit vulgar for some, but it's part of life. And so now that I've actually lessened the squirrel population, there's almost none of them out here getting to these persimmons. And now I'm actually able to enjoy the fruits that I really love. This is like, it really is my favorite fruit. So this tree has done, you know, almost nothing so far, even though it was producing weeks ago because I wasn't able to ripen the fruits and get the fruits for myself. This celebrity over here behind it or next to it, we only have one fruit this season. This is a tree that's really struggled to get established. You can see that fruit right there. We'll get to taste that probably in about three weeks, I would imagine. Maybe a little bit less, two weeks maybe if we're lucky. But it's finally growing actually, and it's growing larger than the proc, which is very surprising. Because again, it took, it seemed like two years behind this proc, even though they were planted at the same date in the same size tree. This is a Sajo here that we have planted that's young, grafted. A couple of years ago, I've moved it a couple of times. It's finally getting some light and getting established. I'm happy about that. Again, this is really my favorite fruit. Now, I want to take you guys out front because the persimmon crop this year is going to be insane. And I have not really, I think, realized how insane it's going to be simply due to the fact that the persimmons now are getting to a larger size. And so they're a lot more noticeable on the tree. And so it's very easy now to determine how much of a crop I actually have. Here's four persimmons. This branch was growing into a honey berry. You can see that down there. Huge persimmons off this tam cam. At least that's what I believe this is. We'll find out 100%. They're massive and they're turning color now, which is great. I had some bags on a couple because the squirrels, again, I didn't want the squirrels to get these. But I'm pretty confident now with this trap, we'll be fine. These are massive, these tam cam. These persimmons are what I would see at the store when you buy a really big fuyu. And these are even bigger. This one here is huge. This is a massive fuyu type. So these are like professionally grown, non-astringent persimmons. It's amazing. So these are actually not that far behind. Again, I think about starting about three weeks, maybe it is quite a bit of time behind the proc. But it's not supposed to be that early, I've heard. Because what is next to it over here is another persimmon that's doing well called Jiro or Ichi Jiro. This is the Ichi Kaikei Jiro. And the fruits are more numerous, but not as large. And maybe that's probably the difference there in the size, is if we thinned this out a little bit. We have some fruits over here growing into the blueberries. Huge fruit set. I'm extremely happy with this. This is a tree I've had in the ground along with the tam cam for probably four years. And so I've had nothing off of any of them. And it's just a nice sight. And this one here actually is massive. This is a big one. So there are some big ones on this variety, I will admit that. But yeah, this is the tam cam. It's, again, it's more persimmons on this than any of the non-astringent types I have. Now we do have this right next to it called Miss Kim, which we've documented before in the past. This thing actually, if you can believe it, had hundreds of fruit on it, which I then thinned. This thing sets and holds on to fruit like no other persimmon I've ever seen. And so it just is like, you know, it is loaded, but the fruits are much smaller. And so I'm actually kind of upset because maybe I thinned too much off of this thing. I don't know. Compared to the production of the other two, I would say this is maybe, especially for the size, this Miss Kim is doing quite well. It's about the same size as the itchy Jiro. And the tam cam is much smaller than the both of them. But the itchy Jiro is outproducing it. And so that makes me think I thinned the fruits too much. But what's weird is when I thinned them, the fruits are still smaller than the itchy Jiro. And I think they're even smaller than they were last year. So this is a bit unusual. But again, I don't think it is the largest persimmon variety, that's for sure. So, you know, it is what it is. But what's nice, at least, is that we have a really nice crop on those Asian persimmon trees. Whereas the Proc and the Celebrity, you know, they typically grow a lot quicker. They're going to be a bigger size. They're going to take a bit longer to mature and actually put out, like, lots of fruit. So it's a bit of a shame. But, you know, I enjoy the Americans more as well. I like eating them more. But it's okay, because next year, I imagine the fruit set will be much larger. And we'll have this squirrel issue figured out from the beginning of the season. Now, over here, it's a very shady spot we have them in. Probably more shadier than where the American trees are over there by the fence. These are the Seijo. This is my larger Seijo. I have a seedling down here I've been trying to graft to. It's just not successfully gone through. And then this, I think, is Huang Yang. And so these two have not produced. But I imagine, because I planted them much later, they're younger trees. I imagine they're going to fruit at least something next year. I'm hoping this Seijo looks like the Asian persimmons in the front. Or even the Huang Yang looks like the Asian persimmons by the street. Because they should be of that age and of that size. And hopefully, they're getting enough light. That's my only real concern at this point. But it seems like all the persimmons, they're doing well in lower light conditions. Whereas, you know, something like the fig can really struggle in lower light. Now, I want to show you my largest tree. And it's getting kind of shaded out by these large jujubes now. I'm really shocked that these things grow so big. But the jujube harvest was insane this year on my potted trees. The in-ground trees, not so much. And I'm drawing probably five pounds of jujubes just from container trees. It might even be more than that. I filled an entire basket of them. So anyway, here's my Rosianca. It's huge. It's probably 15 by 15. Something like that. Maybe 20 feet by 15. Or 20 feet by 10. I don't know. Something like that. It's massive. And again, I showed you guys the production on this before. I did not realize how really many fruits were on this thing. Because the fruits were so small. But now that they've really matured and they're almost done. Some of them actually have ripened now. So I would say this thing here is about two weeks later than the Proc. So the beginning of October. Whereas Proc is the middle of September. This one's rather early. I was shocked to find that. Because I hear that Jiro is supposed to be so early. But it's clearly not. Here's an interesting little shot of the inside of the tree. Look how many fruits are in there. And that's amazing. So we've been struggling with this tree. Trying to get it to produce. This is its seventh or eighth season. And so finally we've got something to show for it. We had some up there. And one of them I got to pick. The other one the squirrel got. And one I gave away to a friend. So he could try Persimmons for the first time. But I must admit the crop on these is just... It's pretty nice. Now is it, I think, as nice as it will be in the future? No, I still think we've got more to come. And this whole upper area, this canopy, I've summer pruned this quite a bit. And so we should have a lot of flowers next year. And the more flowers we get, the more fruit we potentially get. I've summer pruned this, I think, twice. And I think it's made a huge difference in the size of the tree. But also I think next year we'll see a big increase in production. I also pruned out anything underneath that was a bit shaded and didn't have any fruit on it. So any branches that didn't have any fruit, I got rid of that. Actually, probably sometime in like June or July. So here we have a Proc. I wish I had a Rosianca to try side by side. Because I've been saying that Proc's so good. Rosianca's great as well. Just behind it in terms of flavor. The size, though, on the Rosianca is larger. Now I don't know if that's going to continue. But it seems like the Asian genetics were bred into the fruits of this variety more than the tree itself. The tree is a true and true American. Big leaves, large tree, grows quickly, takes a lot longer to fruit. The fruits also have more of an Asian flavor to them. But they're astringent. Obviously a very hardy tree, bred with those American genetics. But here is the Proc. It's a beautiful fruit. It's more round, whereas the Rosianca is a flatter persimmon and larger. So here's an interesting little comparison right there, as you can see. And I think it is considerably larger. The seeds, I don't recall the seeds on the Rosianca. But Proc definitely has some seeds. This one was ripened on the tree. And it went through an entire hurricane. Here you can see the pulp has actually started to dry on the inside. And the consistency has become a very thick jam. Almost like a pancake batter, it's so thick. Like a pastry. This is why I love figs and persimmons so much. They have this amazing texture to them. This is by no means crunchy. It's very soft, juicy, amazing. Immediate fragrance. Didn't even eat it. Just putting it up to your nose, you can smell the amazing persimmon flavor in it. A couple seeds, but I don't care. Honestly, I care less about the seeds. It'd be nice if they weren't there, but this is an amazing piece of fruit. It's so sweet, spicy, good persimmon flavor, date flavor. So that's what Proc, I find, separates itself from the others. Now I did just pick up a meater, which I'll show you right here. Because I love this date flavor so much in this variety. People say rum raisin. It's like a persimmon, a dried persimmon, dried fig, date flavor. This right here is a meater because it's very similar in flavor to the Proc. And it is also an American. Different size fruit, different shape fruit. I think it's more flat, smaller. But I'm excited for that to eventually produce. And then I also picked up a Tecumseh. And Tecumseh, for those that don't know, I found that one in, or I heard about it from Edible Landscaping. Michael McConkey there did a video. Check out his video, by the way, of his tour of all of his persimmon trees in Afton, Virginia. And so Tecumseh is one that produces late into the winter, even into the spring. So that's amazing. You know, this video, guys, I really hope you got something out of this. Please hit that subscribe button. Grow some persimmons. Thanks for watching. We'll see you guys soon, all right? Take care.