Volunteers use pole pickers to reach persimmons on orchard trees
Posted: November 23, 2024

Late fall is persimmon season in the Bay Area, and every year Village Harvest is proud to pick and share tons of this delicious, nutritious fruit with local food assistance agencies.  We do mean tons - in 2024, we have already helped to donate over 14,000 pounds of persimmons, with a few more harvests to go in the season!

Our volunteers help neighbors from the South Bay to the mid-Peninsula share fruit from persimmon trees in their yards and community spaces. We also are grateful to work with several orchard owners in the Gilroy area who host groups of 30-40 volunteers several times each persimmon season to pick and donate their extra fruit. Between our home and orchard persimmon harvests, we have nearly a dozen opportunities for volunteers to contribute to from October to December.

Two varieties of persimmons are the most common in our area: Fuyu and Hachiya persimmons. Fuyus are round and are ready to eat when they are fully orange and still firm. They're similar to apples in that you can eat them out of hand or cut them in slices to add to salads, applesauce, and more.

Hachiya persimmons tend to be larger with a pointed end opposite the stem end. After they're picked from the tree, Hachiyas need to ripen several days to a week or more until they are fully soft, close to the texture of a water balloon. Hachiyas are sometimes called "baking persimmons" because they are a great addition to cakes, breads, muffins, and other baked goods. They are also called "astringent persimmons" - because if you try to eat one off the tree while it's still firm, the bitter, drying taste will deter you from taking another bite.

Both Fuyu and Hachiya persimmons are a fresh fruit highlight of late fall, after apple and pear season has already come and gone. We are grateful and humbled to share this delicious, healthy fruit at a time of year when many types of fresh produce are less available locally.

Check out our photo gallery from this year's persimmon harvests below.

The canopy of orange leaves at a persimmon orchard is a beautiful backdrop to our morning harvest events
The canopy of orange leaves at a persimmon orchard is a beautiful backdrop to our morning harvest events
Volunteer leaders start each harvest with an orientation to the type of fruit we're picking and the tools we use to pick
At each persimmon orchard harvest, volunteers often fill 5-10 or more buckets of fruit that then gets sorted for donation
Donation bins full of fruit - this is over 2,700 pounds of persimmons on their way to families and community members in need