Time to get out and get picking. Hopefully you haven’t missed your local window yet.

We’ve got multiple trees in our neighborhood and as I walk with the kids, they’re always gathering up the fallen fruit.

Hard to beat… when they’re FULLY RIPE.

Green Deane posted a recent article on persimmons that’s pretty in-depth:

“About the only bad thing you can say about a persimmon tree is that it has pucker power, if you pick it at the wrong time.

What most people don’t know is that the persimmon is the North American ebony, Diospyros virginiana (dye-OSS-pih-ross ver-jin-nee-AY-nuh.) There are few trees more versatile than the persimmon. The fruit, actually the largest native berry in North America, can be eaten out of hand or cooked in various ways…. (read the rest)“

Bonus: you can plant persimmon seeds in your food forest in the fall and they’ll often come up in spring. I did pretty good by throwing fistfuls in a flat of soil, then leaving it out all winter. In late spring I had at least a dozen shoots. This is an easy native edible… grow a few!