The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Saving persimmon seeds

Asian persimmons

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.

Coyote scatFirst 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.

Fox scatOn 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!

Our chicken waterer kits come with tips for heating your waterer for even easier cold weather care.


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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.

Comment by Eric in Japan Thu Dec 8 18:55:24 2011
That's exactly what I did last year, but I only got one successfully sprouted seed. I think that pots above ground don't work well if your climate is very cold because of continuous freezing and thawing. That's why I chose to stratify in the fridge instead.
Comment by anna Thu Dec 8 19:35:55 2011





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