The Fruits Hunters.

 It's very regrettable that I've been absent from blogging for the last one month and a half since I was so busy in my business. Now I can managed to have spare time to blog so I hope many blogging friends will visit my blog again.

 As the weather getting cold, around the end of November, my family visit my father in law living in Nara, the city famous as an ancient capital of Japan, for helping him with harvesting persimmon fruits and kiwi fruits. There are many persimmon trees in the backyard and kiwi trees in his garden. He can't harvest them since his right size is paralyzed due to a stroke. That's why we help him every year and we have another reason. My kids are excited with the Fruits Hunting.

 When we saw the persimmon trees, we were shocked with less fruits on the trees than in last year. You can see easily how less the fruits is. But my kids were so helpful that they cooperated with us and my sister in law. You know why? Because they worked for "the sweet fruits of labor".
 Persimmon fruits are located on high branches and twigs so a tool called "a long-handled lopper" (one of my blogging friends taught the English name.)  is so convenient that we can harvest persimmon fruits efficiently. Even my daughter can prune and catch the fruits on the ground as the photo shown below.

My kids cooperated in harvesting the fruits.

 The total amount of the persimmon fruits was less than 1/3 of last year's harvest. My father in law said there is some kind of cycle in the amount of fruits. We don't know what works on the cycle but temperature, weather, and precipitation might affect the cycle.
 We love sweet persimmon fruits and wild birds love them, too! They seem to be able to pick sweet ones instinctively!
 After harvesting them, we peeled and serve them with hot green tea. The tea's bitter taste go well with the sweet fruits.

--from iPad

Hot fruits and sweet fruits

 What can make such big difference between sweet fruits and hot fruits on the Earth? Some fruits are so sweet that many adults and kids get attracted while others are so hot and spicy that many chefs love to add them to make their dishes much tastier.

 In a corner of the precinct where my gardening plot is located, there is a tree of persimmon and many persimmon fruits have ripened.



 Some gardeners including me recognized that the fruits are grown but we didn't know they were sweet or not since it's difficult to see at a glance if they are sweet persimmon or sour persimmon.
But according to the landowner of our garden, the tree is a sweet one and the fruits are also very sweet! The landowner was so kind and generous that he approved us to harvest them!


I and my gardening friends shared about 20 persimmon fruits and I got 9 of them. My family love persimmon fruits so I'll cut them and serve for a dessert after dinner.




 My HOT fruits were also grown and ripen on my red-chili tree! I harvested about 20 red chili fruits. As temperature down, we are going to have craving for a Nabe-dish (hot-pot dish) and spicy red chili is gonna take an important role in making Nabe tastier.

Today's harvest

Here is our today's harvest!
About 3 boxes of kiwi fruits and 25 persimmon fruits.

The kiwi fruits will be preserved with apples till they'll have been matured.

And some sweet persimmons were served on our table.



-- from iPad

Harvesting autumn fruits with my kids

Today my family visited My wife's father who lives with his family in Nara to help harvesting persimmons and kiwi fruits which are planted in his garden.

Unfortunately we saw less fruits on the trees than usual because the heatwave at this summer might affect the productivity of the trees according to her father.

There are 2 persimmon trees in the garden and the fruits are located on the top of the trees so I have to climb up to the roof of his house to harvest them.

The type of persimmon fruits shown above has a lot of persimmon tannin (astringent) so the taste is too bitter for us to eat! After harvesting them they are dried outside for a few months to get rid of tannin and we can enjoy dried persimmons.

Some persimmons are eaten by birds, mainly crows. They are so smart that they can recognize which fruits are sweet leaving bitter ones.....

The other persimmon tree shown above is planted behind his house and it is a sweet persimmon. Can you recognize difference between astringent persimmons and sweet ones? Sweet ones are more round-shaped than bitter ones which look like pointed-shaped.

As you see the above photo, we have to take a risk to harvest the fruits! There is no roof to go up around the tree but only thin brick wall and I dare to stand on the wall and use 'a long shaft nipper' to pick up the fruits. You see my daughter ready to catch them! No risk, No return. That is what my kids learned today, I hope.

Eventually we harvested about 20 persimmon fruits today. Some fruits have crack but that's ok for us to enjoy the taste.

-to be continued.

-- from iPad