Jujube and Early Persimmons

Jujube

We have jujube now at the fruit stand.  A jujube is a a fruit that looks kind of like a small apple but has a drier texture with more complex flavors.  It can be eaten when it's crunchy or more mature and wrinkly.  It's nutritious and used sometimes for medicinal purposes.  "Chinese date" and natsume are other names for jujube.    

The persimmons on the trees are getting color earlier than usual, maybe because of the late warm weather.  We've even picked some soft hachiya persimmons and the first maru (or chocolate) persimmons already.  These early hachiya and maru are smaller and not as sweet as they should be later in the season.  

Many people have been asking about this year's mail order form for hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmon).  We plan to post it next week on this website.  Although all the persimmons seem to ripening early this year, the hachiya and gyombo varieties we use for are still not quite orange enough yet to start peeling them for drying into hoshigaki.

Taking Care of the Kaki

A bucket of some of the last kaki peelings this season.

At the end of last week we finished peeling persimmons (kaki) to hang and dry for hoshigaki.  All the hachiya and gyombo persimmons we use for drying are now too soft to peel, and the weather is too damp and cold for beginning more to dry well.  The last kaki that got peeled may take twice as long to dry as those that began in the warmer weather.  Now we have to concentrate on taking care of the kaki left drying until they're finished.

We are selling small amounts of hoshigaki at the fruit stand, but if you'd like to pick up larger amounts (more than a few pounds), please call us ahead of time so we can reserve it for you (916-791-1656). At this time, we're still accepting mail orders also.  When we determine that we've received hoshigaki orders equivalent to our estimate of what's drying, we'll announce here that we've stopped taking mail orders for the season.  To order hoshigaki by mail, print out the order form from the Hoshigaki/Persimmons section of the website, and mail it in with a check. 

Colder weather makes the fuyu persimmons start to get soft too, so if you like harder fuyus try to come get them soon.  Our mandarins are not quite ready yet, they're ripening late this year.  We hope they'll be ready to pick and have at the fruit stand in a week or so.  

Here's what's at the fruit stand now:

• Persimmons--Fuyu, Maru, Hachiya, vodka-treated Hyakume, and limited amounts of hoshigaki (dried persimmon)
  
• Apples--Granny Smith
• Asian Pear--Okusankichi (extra large juicy brown variety)
  
• Quince
• Walnuts--in the shell
• Pecans--in the shell
  
• Winter Squash--Butternut
• Pumpkins & Gourds--for decoration or eating
  
• Eggs--from chickens at our orchard
• Honey--from bees at our orchard

2010 Hoshigaki Orders

We have the new 2010 order form for hoshigaki (dried persimmons) up on this web site now.  If you'd like to order hoshigaki to be sent to you by mail, please order as soon as you can, because we fill your order according to when it was placed.  You can find the order form under the "Hoshigaki/Persimmons" tab at the top of the page. To make an order by mail, print out the order form and mail it to us with a check.  Sorry, we don't take credit cards. 

If you'd like to pick up an order of hoshigaki at the fruit stand, you don't have to fill out the online order form.  To arrange to pick up an order at the fruit stand, please email us and tell us what amount you'd like.  We'll either write to you or call you back and tell you when we expect it would be ready.  If you're able to come out to the orchard yourself to pick up an order, you don't have to pay for shipping, and you can also buy smaller amounts than a pound. 

It's important to keep in mind that the process of making hoshigaki is weather dependant.  Since we don't know how much sun and heat we get, we don't know ahead of time how much hoshigaki  we'll be able to produce.  The fruit may ripen more or less quickly and we never know when it will get too soft to peel.  In the past few years we've had to stop taking new orders sometime in December.  We'll post here on the web site when we can no longer take orders this year.

In the orchard, the persimmons on the trees are starting to have blushes of orange.   When they have color, but are still hard, we can start peeling them for making hoshigaki (dried persimmons).  It seems like it will be a few more weeks before we will be ready to start peeling the first persimmons, but we'll have to wait and see what the weather brings.  After we begin,  it will take around 6 weeks for the peeled persimmons to dry and become hoshigaki. 

In the photo above you can see fresh, unpeeled hachiya persimmons next to hoshigaki in its finished state.  The skin has been peeled, but nothing has been added.  The white powder on the outside is natural sugar from inside the fruit that forms on the surface towards the end of the drying process.   

And now, a Blog

I took a bit of time this weekend to work on the website. This is the first time I've touched it since Cousin Patti died. It no longer feels sacrilegious to make changes to but it still reminds me of her so I've mostly stuck to changing the table-based layout to CSS; making things more semantically valid under the covers while keeping the same visual design. I've got a few pages converted so that they display fine in Firefox but I still have to make sure they look okay in Internet Explorer. You can take a look at the new Home Page and the new About Page to make sure they display okay in your browser.

More exciting is that I've worked up a skin for the Otow Orchard Blog and am going to add it to the website soon. Hopefully this will allow my mother and father to write notes about what's going on at the Orchard and let everyone know what fruits are in season.