Saturday, October 4, 2014

Curious Seedless Persimmon and Other Saturday Things

So after learning last week that persimmon seeds are used by some people to forecast the winter weather, I went to Whole Foods in search of some persimmons of my own to see what the seeds look like.  This morning Maya and I cut both of the two persimmons in half, and found exactly nothing---  seedless persimmons!  They did have eight grooves arranged in a nice pattern around the whitish centers, but not a single seed.  Apparently there are seedless persimmons just like seedless grapes and seedless watermelons.  Is this a GMO thing?

After our failed seed exploration, we did some drawing and rubber eraser carving, making a sheep logo to put on the tags we're making for our teething sheep.  We've decided to call our little teething toys project Chompos.   Maya drew and carved and printed this one. 

At the bottom left of the sheep page is an opened pod from Japanese iris;  and next to that is a armed goddess figure, this one African and made of bronze.  It hangs from a bead necklace that I bought at the NO Jazz Fest from an African booth, probably in the early 80s one time when we went back for Jazz Fest.

3 comments:

  1. I don't think there is GMO persimmon. Seedless persimmon is usually the Fuyu variety (which looks like what you sketched) or another variety that has not been pollinated. Yes, the plants can make fruit (self-fertile) even if they are not pollinated. The Hachiya variety which is more elongated and very astringent until dead ripe has a big seed in the middle.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this good information, Kate! I wonder if I can find the elongated Hachiya persimmons here in Western NC. That must be the kind with the big seed that the farmer's almanac refers to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i like this collection of saturday things. you can always go the way of kakishibu with your persimmons...

    ReplyDelete