Our persimmons

At least a dozen years ago, we put in a number of fruit trees in the hope of establishing a mini-orchard. It was a noble, but, in retrospect, not-well-executed effort. The holes I dug were fine. The fertility of the soil was up to standards. But I failed on one key element: fruit trees need sun... and lots of it. Since I wasn't willing to take down most of the surrounding oaks, beeches, and maples, all of them large and mature, what I gave the incipient orchard was shade... lots of it. As a result, we didn't get much of a harvest, and if this were a pediatrician evaluating a youngster, the diagnosis would be, alas, "failure to thrive." One of our reluctant charges was a persimmon, a species native to my wife's Midwest and a tree with a lot of pleasant memories for her. It certainly grew well in the understory and produced luxuriant leaves. It also flowered every spring and left us with high hopes... but no fruit. Maybe it just needed more time. With most of the foliage gone today, I scanned the tree for signs of what uber-forager Euell Gibbons called "sugar plums." Miracle of miracles, there be persimmons, perhaps a dozen or more: perhaps one for every year we've waited. With a jar of persimmon pulp in the freezer, maybe we can add these sugary lumps of goodness to the stash. Gibbons has recipes.