Persimmons: Sweet as Pie

Perfect for preserving or eating fresh, this native fruit allow you to eat really local — from your own backyard.

By Maggie Bullington
Updated on October 18, 2021
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by AdobeStock/Solovets

Autumn in the country brings cooler weather, colorful foliage, and persimmon harvest season. Although an underripe persimmon is mouth-puckeringly tart – and practically inedible, except to hungry goats – one that’s ripened to perfection is sweet, with a complex caramel-like flavor. The ripe fruit can be eaten fresh, or baked into delectable autumn treats. Its flavor pairs well with warm, comforting spices, such as nutmeg and cinnamon.

Multiple persimmon trees thrive on my family’s property, requiring little care. Native, or common, persimmons (Diospyros virginiana) grow semi-wild in our part of Alabama. They can also be found in a wide swath of the eastern and Midwestern United States, from Connecticut to Florida, and Kansas to Texas.

Native persimmon trees can also be intentionally planted in Zones 4 to 9. You can choose from improved cultivars, such as ‘Early Golden,’ ‘Yates,’ or ‘Prok.’ They’ll tolerate most growing conditions, but will produce the best harvests in moist soil. American persimmon trees can grow more than 80 feet tall, making harvest a challenge, so I leave the fruits on the taller trees to wild critters. In addition to their fruit, persimmon trees are prized for their dense wood, which is used to make the heads of golf clubs.

Japanese persimmons are also popular for planting, as they produce high yields and are self-fertile. On the other hand, they’re not as cold-hardy and have a different flavor and texture than the native species. The fruits of Japanese cultivars are larger, flatter, and firmer. The fruit produced by the ‘Fuyu’ cultivar is also known to have no astringent qualities.

a pile of dark red and purple ripe persimmons

But there’s just something special about the native species. Most American persimmons require a male and female tree in the same vicinity to bear fruit. We have a male persimmon on the edge of our yard, where it’s the focal point of the view from our kitchen window. This male tree produces a plethora of inconspicuous blooms in spring that are nevertheless attractive to pollinators. My favorite of our fruiting persimmons stands just inside the pasture gate, near the barn, and produces fruit about the size of a half-dollar. It’s a dwarf tree, standing only about 25 feet tall.

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