North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Yes, a couple thousand years of selective breeding can sure make a difference.  I'm a huge fan of the fuyu non-astringent type persimmon.  Biting into one, firm but not quite hard, bright orange and sweet as a mango, I almost regret leaving California.  I cut down my native cultivars a few years ago (Early Golden, Meader, Garretson) because to me they weren't paying their rent- they were just OK.

 

But my single astringent kaki- now that's another story.  I've never gotten a single fruit off that tree but every year I pop it out of the soil- it's roots are somewhat contained in a Whitcomb fabric bag- and cart it over to the root-cellar for winter storage with my much more generous figs.  I must have first received that tree over a decade ago and still not a single piece of fruit- never had much luck with establishing persimmons in CA come to think of it.  But I was a mere novice then, depending on instructions from Sunset Magazine

 

But now I have 2 decades more experience and resources like the Nafex List.  So I'm shouting out, have any of you successfully harvested Kaki's, especially the non astringents, in a zone 6A or colder?  I'm interested in hands-on results here not researched info- I have all of that that I need.  I know that there are some very cold hardy varieties and where to order them.  I'm also willing to continue my experiments with winter protected plants.  Have any of you out there succeeded where anticipation has been my only harvest?     

 

I'm in zone 6A