A tree with a view

My good friend Steve gave me a couple of Paw-Paw trees (Asimina triloba) during the summer. I have kept them in the pot until now, wanting to make sure they were kept watered and healthy during the hot season.

Paw-Paw tree (Asimina triloba) with a view of a little pond

Last week I took them out to my in-law's land where there is plenty of room to plant trees and searched for a good spot. I also had some young Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) trees to plant. My mother-in-law pointed me an area which already had a cluster of Persimmon trees growing. I don't know if the trees were planted together here many years ago (when my wife's ancestors settled the land), or if they grew here naturally. My mother-in-law had shown these to me in the past but I had never seen any fruit on them. This time around I saw a few fruits up on the tall skinny trees and I saw one smaller, squat tree that was absolutely covered in fruit.

Nearby Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) tree loaded with fruit

We decided that we would go ahead and plant the Paw-Paw trees here with the Persimmon trees. I like that these little trees have such a nice view. By the way, I took advantage of the loaded Persimmon tree.

Persimmon fruits

Persimmon seeds removed from fruit.
There's actually more seed volume than fruit volume and it was a lot of work to separate the two.

Persimmon cookies

I brought about 30 fruits home and laboriously separated the small amount of fruit from the large amount of skin and seeds and made one batch of Persimmon cookies using the recipe I've shared before. I only got 1/3 cup of persimmon out of the fruits I collected, so I had to modify the recipe. The end result was 14 delicious cookies and 110 seeds that I can now plant. Johnny Appleseed, there's a new seed sower in town.

Update: Native persimmons

You may recall that last year I collected a wild persimmon and planted the seeds. I put these in a pot outdoors and just let them be - no water, no attention whatsoever. I figured the less I messed with them, the more likely they would be to germinate.

Persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana) beginning to sprout from the soil.

It appears my gambit worked! I have one little tree that sprouted from the soil in late March or early April and another one is breaking through the soil now. (And I'm pretty sure it's not a pecan or oak tree planted by a neighborhood squirrel, which is what usually comes up in my pots that sit outdoors...)

Persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana) growing quickly.

The funny thing is that just a week before the first tree sprouted I placed an order from a plant catalog and included two small persimmon trees, so it looks like I may soon have persimmon trees coming out my ears and I don't really have a plan for where to plant them!

I know my mom would love to be able to pick persimmons from her own yard, but I also know that these native persimmons are not the ideal candidates for cooking. And I also realize it will be years before the trees are large enough to bear fruit...

I do have access to land where I can plant these, so maybe I'll start a little grove there.

Plant Find: Turmeric

There was a (very) small mid-week farmer's market held at a neighborhood park in Galveston and I walked over to see if there was anything interesting.  One of the five vendors had a handful of plants for sale, one of which looked like a Canna or ginger to me.  I asked the owner what it was and he surprised me by saying it was Turmeric.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) plant

Sometime last year I was in a cooking phase and had a recipe I really wanted to cook that called for turmeric roots.  I have turmeric powder and knew that I could use that, but started researching the roots, which would surely be a more fresh and potentially have a richer flavor.  I found that I could buy turmeric roots on Amazon and they look a lot like ginger roots, except they are orange inside, much like a sweet potato.

Turmeric root, used for cooking

I talked to the guy at the farmer's market and asked him how he goes about harvesting and replanting.  He says that he grows the turmeric in a raised bed and will harvest about 90% of his clump of turmeric and leave 10% behind to grow the next batch.  He wasn't asking much for the small plant and I decided that even if I don't end up using the plant for cooking and just grow it as ornamental (like all my other plants) I would be happy to have a turmeric plant in my collection.