Saving persimmon seeds
Yes, I admit it --- one
of my incentives for making the homesteading
internship property
a reality is to find a place to plant all of the persimmon seeds I've
been accumulating this fall. They seem to be jumping out of the
woodwork, and I'm itching to put them all in the ground.
First
came an intriguing package from down south. Pulling out the
ziploc baggies, I thought perhaps someone had sent me an early batch of
Christmas candy. But, not, it was one bag of very smelly coyote
scat and another of whole persimmons. I'll be excited to see
which does better --- the seeds that went through the animal, or those
that came straight out of the fruit.
Next, Mom brought me a
batch of local persimmons. Both of these first sets of seeds are
from trees that fruit early in the year, which would make great pasture
plants to fatten up fall broilers.
On the internship property
itself, I got sidetracked from inventorying all of the land's features
when I found this great fox scat on a log. The scat had dried up
and fallen apart, so I'm not sure whether the persimmon seeds I picked
out will sprout --- time will tell. (Most of the seeds in the
photo are Red Cedar seeds, just in case you're wondering.)
Then came the piece de
resistance --- my brother brought two ripe Asian
persimmons to
Thanksgiving. The fruits yielded only one seed apiece, but I'm
excited to give them a try for a handful of reasons. First, Joey
reports that the fruits are the non-astringent type of persimmon even
when unripe, and I didn't think that type survived this far
north. Second, I've read that Asian persimmons grafted onto
American rootstocks (like the ones I planted this fall) sometimes die
suddenly, so I'm excited to try an ungrafted Asian persimmon.
And, finally, these are a later-ripening variety, perfect for
stretching winter pasture.
I wrapped each seed in a
damp rag inside a ziploc bag and stored them all in the fridge.
Hopefully that will work to stratify the seeds and they'll sprout well
in the spring. Thank you
so much to each of my persimmon seed gatherers!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I plant my seeds in pots and leave them outside all winter. They come up nicely in the spring. That works especially well with peaches, but persimmons also germinated last year.