Prepper Gardens: American Persimmon Trees

The American persimmon is a perfect plant for your Prepper garden. The tree has long been used in home remedies because of the medicinal properties. You can use the fruit in a wide variety of ways most notably in puddings, juices, and breads. Deer go nuts over the persimmon fruit and have long been a favorite among hunters to plant in their food plots.

The persimmon has documented uses back to when the British first landed in the Americas. Native American Indians would use the juice from the fruit to make throat washes that would treat a sore throat, and a hot tea to treat cold and the flu symptoms. The bark is used in a couple of different methods, first as a decotion to treat hemorrhoids, second, as a tea to treat fevers. Fruit from the American persimmon are high in antioxidants, being used in leukemia treatments. With such a wide list of medical uses growing American persimmon trees for survival just make sense for gardeners in USDA zones 4 through 9, which is the majority of the United States of America including Illinois, New York, and Colorado.

The fruit has a late ripening period usually in late fall and is most commonly used for cooking instead of fresh eating, unlike the Japanese persimmon tree (grafted). You can enjoy the fruit by making a delicious American persimmon pudding, with our Native American recipe. My favorite use and one that I hardly hear any one discuss is to use the ground seed to brew fresh persimmon coffee. Just imagine after the collapse you and your family can still enjoy fresh coffee by utilizing the seeds from the persimmon fruit. This is true and widely documented that during the civil war confederate soldiers and civilians would make coffee from the seeds because they missed the delicacy so much due to a northern blockade. Check out our free recipe on making American persimmon coffee. If you are adventurous enough you can experiment with making American persimmon beer.

Hunters are widely familiar with persimmon trees. Deer have been known to literally climb the tree to get the fruit from the tree. Plant some American persimmons for you and get the added benefit of attracting wildlife to your property, that you can then hunt to increase your fresh meat food supplies. Three main reasons persimmons are a great wildlife food plot plant is because deer can not stop eating the fruit, the fruit hangs on the tree from fall through the winter longer than any other fruit plant, and the tree can be grown all through out the continental United States. Add some persimmon trees to your food plots to start feeding and attracting those monster bucks to your property.

The wood from the American persimmon tree is known to be harder than a rock, perfect for making items like golf clubs, spears, ladders, hand tools, and many other invaluable items. When a collapse does occur you will have to be able to make your own ax or shovel handles after they break and you will need access to the best wood possible and there is nothing better than a persimmon tree.

Persimmon trees are easy to grow, drought resistant, and pest resistant making this an all around perfect plant for Preppers. As far as a cost effective investment into the future survival of you and your loved ones, I would strongly suggest planting American persimmon trees, as this is one plant that has a million uses. You will get a fast return on your investment and then some with all the useful uses you will find for the tree and the fruit. Now is the perfect time to plant (Fall through Spring when dormant) a persimmon tree, so go ahead and stock on yours now.