I have a ten acre hobby farm where I have lived for the past twenty years. Over the years, what used to be our pasture has become a wild, wooded area with many different species of trees. I did not plant any of them. They are all volunteers. And one of the tallest trees with the sweetest fruit is the persimmon tree. Bow and I love the wild persimmon fruit.
The persimmon fruit is loved by many of our wild animals as well. The deer, if they fins a wild persimmon on the ground, will eat it long before I can reach it. Even my free range chickens and ducks might eat of the fallen fruit.
That is why I have had to devise a stratagem for getting the sweet fruit down from the tree before it drops. I use a dead branch from another tree. I shake the fruit with the long branch, and it drops down to the ground. Then I wash the fruit and bring it inside to share with Bow.
When Bow has eaten the fruit, he gives me the seeds. I do not plant them. I just throw them outside so that nature can decide where a new tree needs to grow. The secret to growing healthy trees is this: do not interfere. As long as you do not mow the grass or rake the leaves, enterprising trees will volunteer to grow. To me, that is the most sustainable option.
