I want a persimmon tree and I want it badly. I love the sight of the fruit hanging on the leafless trees just before the Christmas season. And I love their taste too. I know they are not native to Central Europe and they might need some work, but there is a chance that I can have one, right? In the spring I purchased two persimmon trees. When I started this project, they seemed to not make it so I decided to fight my urge to have a persimmon tree with heavy weaponry. I have purchased 300 /three hundred/ persimmon seeds. One hundred from each species mentioned below. So can I have a persimmon now ? This project is all about propagating a persimmon. Some basic information I got from the internet.

-There are 3 main species of persimmon: Dyospiros kaki – the Asian persimmon, Dyospiros virginiana – American persimmon and the Dyospiros Lotus – the Date plum.

- To start a persimmon from seed is hard

- To start persimmons from seed you have to stratify them. It means you have to simulate winter, which you can do by putting them into the fridge for  3-4 months.

- The most cold-hardy persimmon is the American persimmon

Test 1.  Starting persimmon seeds without stratification:

I have planted 5 seeds from each variety in a pot. Before planting them I let them soak for 24 hours in lukewarm water. After about 30 days 2 american, 1 asian and 2  date plums emerged. Some other activity is happening too so there might be more. The final results are:

- American persimmon   2 out of 5 germination rate 40%

- Asian persimmon  6 out of 5 germination rate 120% oops… I guess we can settle with 100%

- Date Plum 5 out of 5 germination rate 100%

Test 2. Starting seeds with stratification

30 seeds from each variety are in the fridge now, waiting until March to be planted.

This is another crazy project. I am always impressed when I flip a garden magazine and a veggie garden is arranged like a flower garden. Everything is neat and compliments each other. I wanted something similar but I decided to test it on small scale. In a pot.

I chose three different varieties of tomatoes, different shapes, sizes and colors. All of them are heirloom /in EU I am committing a crime now, because we have a list of approved varieties… what rubbish !/. I chose  the big red “Cherokee Purple”, small yellow pear-shaped “Ildi” and tiny red “Christmas grapes”. I sowed the seeds and replanted the seedlings into a 25l /cca 5-6 gallon/ pot. I am watering them regularly.

Nobody believed it would be possible, but a few weeks passed and they are doing OK. We already have some green tomatoes and plenty of flowers, and we’re waiting for them to get ripe and make a beautiful show and lecso /Hungarian ratatouille/.

Some closeups of the developing tomatoes:

UPDATE 2008 July 29 : RESULTS

It seems the crazy project is a success. I got three tomato varieties in one pot. It was a very wet year and plenty of my tomatoes were victims of rot. These survived /small leaf damage as you can see/. The tomatoes tasted magnificent. I can recommend this experiment to everyone. What would I do differently? Since I mainly started the project for show – three different colors, shapes and sizes – next time I will pick tomatoes which ripen at the same time. The Cherokee Purple tomato is still green and needs some time, but it is doing ok. So I can conclude the project is  a success.

We renovated our house about a year ago. The intense work left us with plenty of rubbish. I tend to live the philosophy “one day I will need that”. This does not pay of all the time, but sometimes yes. One of the treasures we have are our bricks. They were made sometime in the beginning of the 20th century and they have a nice stamp of the local brick factory. I use them for flower beds and other small constructions in the garden /we even sold some in the local antique shop for $12 each… wow…expensive flower beds huh?/. In the spring my son and I decided to give a new home to our toad friends. Until now they have resided in my cellar. I tolerated them because they did not touch my wine. But you know, sometimes you just get jumpy when you see a jumping small thing in the dark cellar.

Toads are great helpers in the garden because they eat a lot of nasty garden enemies, including human enemies like mosquitoes and flies. Therefore to attract them is a good idea. Toads like shade, a moist place to hide, soft sandy soil to borrow when it is dry outside. On a paper we drew the plan for the toad residence. No building permission was needed so we started. On a sandy hill we flattened out the area. We used some side roof tiles as a residence. Around the residence we built a bed, filled it wit soil and we planted strawberries. The residence is done. We don’t know if there are some toads but we have seen a lizard running around. We can’t discriminate! Lizards are equally welcome.

The truth is that during this project my son let me down. He refused to do the physical work and decided to boss me around. Ahhhh…..kids.