Uncommon Fruits
Growing fruits in the garden or orchard, including: pawpaw, currants, gooseberries, kiwi, berries.
Garden and Yard Special
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Fruit: rich, bloom dusted, melting, and luscious—
such are the treasures of orchard and garden..." wrote A.
J. Downing over a hundred years ago in The Fruit and
FruitTrees of North America . When you raise
your own fruit, not only can you harvest at the peak of
perfection, but you also can grow fruits not commonly found
in the markets. Persimmon, pawpaw, june berry, gooseberry,
and red currant are examples of uncommon, yet delectable
fruits. They also are easy to grow, requiring neither the
repeated spraying nor the skillful pruning demanded by
apples, peaches, and other familiar fruits.
Persimmon. The botanical name Diospyros
appropriately translates as "food of the gods." Persimmons
have a soft, smooth, jelly-like texture, a honey-like
sweetness. In appearance, the fruits resemble tomatoes,
cherry tomatoes in the case of our native American
persimmon and large tomatoes in the case of the oriental
persimmon. American persimmon fruits are slightly drier and
richer in flavor than those of the oriental persimmon, the
persimmon sometimes found in markets. American persimmon
trees also survive and ripen their fruits further north.
American persimmon is hardy to -25°F; oriental
persimmon to 0°F.
Persimmons are not widely known or grown for their fruits
because they are too soft for commercial shipping—not
a problem when you stand under your own tree and eat the
fruits—and because unripe fruits are astringent: but
who would eat an unripe peach?. Contrary to myth, frost is
not necessary to ripen a persimmon, just a sufficiently
long season. I garden near the northern limit of persimmon
growing, so I grow an early ripening variety of American
persimmon, such as Meader, Pieper, and Szukis.
Many oriental persimmons do not need cross-pollination;
most American persimmons do. Trees of both types usually
have either male or female flowers, so if pollination is
needed, you must plant both a male and a female tree. There
is no danger of spring frost snuffing out the crop, because
the blossoms open relatively late in the season.
A long taproot makes persim mons more dif ficult to
transplant than most other fruit trees. Therefore, plant in
spring and use either potted trees or bare root trees that
have been freshly dug.
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