That first heavy frost is not far off, and it is looking to be a very heavy crop of persimmons this year. About 8 years ago I was wanting to find a new addition to our Winter Farmers' Market table and something new and different on the on farm store shelves. So I dug out great great Grandma's pieced together ancient recipe book for ideas. As I sat by the warm fire popping very gently thumbing through the delicate pages, Great Great Grandma started this book in 1853 if the date she inscribed on the inside cover is to be trusted. Great Grandma added to it after it passed on to her, then grandma did the same and I consider it a great honor that Grandma chose me to hand the ancient recipe book to.... but I am heading down a side path..... I sat there looking through the pages and found Persimmons and 18 variations from the base recipe. It really did not sound that exciting but I have a good size grove of persimmon trees on the NW corner of the farm and thought...... why not. I I picked a couple hundred pounds of persimmons for that first trial. Following Great Great Grandma's process was and is very time consuming and from the time you pick them to the time the jelly is jelling in the jars is a 9 day process. Over the years I tried shortcuts but it was never right if I veered from the instructions. From that first 200 pounds I got 70 half pints of Jelly. I gathered my victims errr new recipe tasters and it was a instant hit! I picked another 1000 pounds before they fell and made another 360 half pints. About 1/3 the basic base recipe, 1/3 the Rosehip variant and 1/3 the Cinnamon Variant and 24 of them the Mint version. After introducing it to the markets and the store it was all sold out at $5.00 per half pint within 2 weeks. The next year I made 3000 half pints and 1000 pints and was sold out by Christmas. Now we try to make 5000 half pints and 2000 pints from mid October through November. It has became a tradition with several friends joining in the picking, processing and extracting process. When it was just me doing it I used my bucket tractor that gets me 18' feet up in the air to pick, LOL I rigged a 20' long pole with a fork on the end and wired a hook on to work the hydraulic levers standing up in the bucket. I would share the recipe and process but am bound by the tradition of not sharing the recipes with anyone outside of the family. But fear not there are a few good persimmon jelly recipes that can be found online. None that are as good as ours IMO but decent enough. The Raw ingredients. The finished product One Run Done. This is from 2015 and the persimmon crop sucked You should see it when I put the 30' extension ladder in the tractor bucket..... Those Persimmons at the very top tree have to be the sweetest..... If they are not the best and sweetest why else would they be so high up Should note we do not ship and this is not a sales post We serve a 4 County Region in Southern IL. and don't want to do more than that. And yes I know our Addy is on the label, it ain't like everyone around here doesn't know where we are
Great Dehydrated as well, more so if you can find a tree or two that make big ones with fewer seeds. Tried shipping a couple of years ago, with the meats and it just proved too expensive for the customer and a lot of headaches and extra work for us. Plus we operate under the Cottage Exemption for the jams, jellies, baked goods etc. and can only sell in State and solely at Farmers Markets. Push the limit selling the cottage goods in our on farm store by calling it a farmers market since it has two farms items in it and the law defines a market as two or more farmers gathered to sell farm products......
That was us last year about 1/20th of a normal crop. This year the limbs are bending under their weight though.
They are just starting to come into the Asian grocery stores here on left coast! I just started eating them two years ago, 64 wasted years!
LOL hard to think about the Persimmons this year with the temps still in the 90s in late September. Going to a be a very light crop this year as we pretty much have gotten no meaningful rain since mid July. Me and the dog did walk over to the Persimmon grove earlier this week and it is looking like maybe 500 pounds will be our take this year VS 2500 pounds on a normal year. Of course I am starting to wonder what a normal year is now days! Seems we either have droughts or are flooded.............. Or like this flooded up into July and then drought after that, been digging a new sewage lagoon and am down to 4 feet deep and stuck my moisture meter in down there and it is reading a whopping 4% moisture............... That dry that deep is not conducive to productive trees
My Mom is back East and her apples suffered greatly this year. The trees blossomed early then the rains came. One of her trees only had 3 apples on it. From 2500 pounds to 500. Wow, that it is a bad year.
I learned early to be very wary of unripe persimmons. Great googlymoogly that's a bad taste. Last week I was introduced to the wild Mexican persimmon tree. Tiny and very sweet but dark enough juice to stain your teeth and fingers.
