Unplanned Persimmons

Bow examines the persimmons he is eating

When I first moved here in 2001, there were no persimmon trees on the property. I owned five acres of pasture, and another five acres that were lawn, orchard and woods and where the house stood. But I let the pasture go, stopped mowing it, and in thirteen years time it has grown all sorts of trees and bushes and vegetation that was not there before. A friend once asked me: "How do you grow trees on your land?" The answer: "Just stop mowing." That's it. That's all it takes.

The trees just kind of sneak up on you, when you're not looking. You don't watch them rising up from saplings, because the grass is too high to see that. You  don't  cry over each one that dies, because you never even knew it was there. You only see the ones who made it, long after their roots are securely fixed deep in the ground. 

I noticed my first persimmon tree around Halloween a year or two ago. It was completely bare, except for this round orange fruit that reminded me of pumpkins. It was a little spooky to see a tree all decked out like that, when all the others were in mourning or near-death hibernation. I called it my Halloween tree.

You're not supposed to pick the fruit until after the first good frost, otherwise it will be too bitter to eat.

No matter how beautiful and smooth it looks, you have to wait until the skin has been shriveled by the frost to pick it. Some of the persimmons burst as they fall to the ground when you shake the tree. Be sure to wash them before presenting them to the chimpanzee in your life.

Presentation is everything. I use Blue Willow China

Bow loves persimmons.

He eats them very daintily. 

He is not sure he wants to eat the skin and definitely won't swallow any of the seeds.

But he loves the sweet stuff that is in the middle, and he will go to a lot of trouble to eat it all.

It's nice to have free fruit that you neither planted nor watered. It's like getting a bonus you never expected.

After Bow finishes, I have a bowl full of seeds, which I throw outside in the yard, to fall where they may. Most will never find fertile ground and will not become new trees. Nature is wasteful that way.  But that's how paradise works. That's why we have so many persimmons to eat free of charge. One out of many sprouts from the ground, and no one can know which one it will be! Isn't that better than planning?