I have an enormous persimmon tree in my front yard and would like to invite the Village Harvest folks over to harvest it, but the fruit isn't ripe yet, what can I do? I would dearly love to get my tree stripped before it starts dropping orange mush bombs on my driveway.

Thanks,

A persimmon tree owner in Palo Alto.

Dear Persimmon Tree Owner,

Don't despair. You have precious gold on your hands. Hachiya persimmons (the long ones best eaten when mushy) can be harvested while they are hard and then left to ripen on your counter-top. Let the mess occur in your kitchen instead of on your driveway. Fuyu persimmons (the short, squat ones) are best harvested before they are mushy as they are eaten hard like an apple. To harvest these trees, you might want to invest in extendible a fruit picker from Common Ground in Palo Alto. Using a picker, you can reach 10 - 12 feet from the ground. Picking from a ladder takes you even higher.

If you have too many Hachiya persimmons to eat at their mushy stage, then think about investing in a dehydrator and drying your persimmons for that great taste throughout the year. Simply harvest them while they are hard, slice them into 1/3" slices, and dehydrate them until they are pliable but not wet. Or, you can dry them whole in your oven: peel them first, and dehydrate for about 5 days in the oven at 135 degrees. Or, place the mushy ones in the freezer for an ice cream treat during the summer.

If these options don't work for you, or you still have too many persimmons even after drying and freezing them, contact by Village Harvest: info@villageharvest.org or 888-FRUIT-411 to see if their volunteers can come out to glean your fruit tree and send the fruit to the local food pantries where it will be distributed to the hungry. Village Harvest is a local nonprofit volunteer organization in Santa Clara Valley, California, which brings together neighbors and community organizations to provide food for the hungry, preserve our agricultural heritage and skills, and promote sustainable use of urban resources who glean the tree and distribute the fruit to local food pantries so that it can go to the hungry in our area.

For those of you who are wishing that you had a persimmon tree to pick, contact Village Harvest to volunteer to pick someone else's tree! The Valley of Heart's Delight and Village Harvest are sponsoring a Harvesting for the Hungry event on Saturday----------------------. See news above to RSVP. Other persimmons harvests will continue throughout the fall. See the Village Harvest calendar for a list of all the events.

As for me, I'll be in a tree this weekend picking persimmons after which I'll be hanging out in the kitchen slicing and dehydrating persimmons. Better check that my dehydrator trays have been cleaned off from the tomatoes I dehydrated a few weeks ago!

Patiently picking persimmons,

B.

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