The first NIKITA’S GIFT persimmon I ate was a present. I and a few colleagues were eating dinner with Brie Arthur in Raleigh in 2013. And, after dinner Brie pipped up that she had some NIKITA’S GIFT persimmons to share. We were to take a few and let them sit on the counter for a week or so to ripen and become soft.
I followed her advice, and sure enough about 10 days later, the fruit gave with a gentle squeeze. After one bite, I can still remember nine years later the sweet and tropical flavor—almost mango like—at the advent of winter. And, there was little astringency.
I had to have more.
Once we moved into our current home, one of my first tasks was planting an orchard for I knew it would take time for fruit trees to grow. NIKITA’S GIFT was at the top of my wishlist of trees. It’s not your normal persimmon. No, it was bred in Ukraine at Nikita Botanic Garden by crossing our native Diospyros virginiana with Diospyros kaki. It has the flavor of American persimmon but more vigor and larger fruit and leaf size like Japanese persimmon. Officially, the cultivar name is ‘Nikitskaya Bordovaya’, but Northwoods Nursery trademarked the name NIKITA’S GIFT; therefore, I’m following the practice of capitalizing the name to indicate name protection since the Americanized name is not a cultivar.
I ordered three one-gallon plants online in autumn of 2018, and after they arrived, I took great care getting them established. I picked out a perfect spot for them in the orchard-to-be where they would be visible from the house and where the morning sun would would irradiate their future orange orbs on the trees. The rootballs had J roots, a condition where the root grew down to the bottom of the pot, turned, and then grew back up. After some teasing, I had the problem mostly fixed and the plants firmly set in the soil. I caged the trees to protect from deer, a wise decision seeing the other trees they’ve destroyed on the property. I mulched them, provided fresh leaf mold for their bases each year, and watered when needed. Then, I waited.
I was delighted in 2020 to see them bloom. Their blooms were large, larger than I remember them being on a native persimmon. However, no fruits followed. They bloomed again in 2021. This time, fruit followed, but they fell off. I became concerned that even though we have persimmons around in the forests, the trees weren’t getting pollinated enough. I thought I would give them another year or two, but I had begun to consider grafting a wild male American persimmon bud onto the tree to ensure pollen was available.
But, then this year came, and the trees were loaded with fruit. One tree had easily 50 fruit on it. But, in midsummer, they began to fall off again. I decided to take an extreme approach and prune most of the fruit off until there was only 10 fruit left on each tree. My suspicion was the fruit were dropping because so many had been pollinated, but the tree could only support so many.
The fruit ripening is like watching a slow, long burning sunset. The orbs started changing color in September as the green fruit shifted to a bright golden yellow and then made their way through hues of orange in October until they display that last fiery red now that November has arrived.
The reddening NIKITA’S GIFT persimmon is almost ripe!
Of course, I tried to cheat and take a persimmon early, but you can’t rush ripening on a persimmon. Even the fruit sitting on the kitchen window for two weeks isn’t enough. One bite and my mouth turned dry. I gargled water at the spout on the kitchen sink trying to cure my dry mouth. Dad always said fruit needed a frost before the wild ones were ready to eat. Same for NIKITA’S GIFT, too, I suppose.
Finally, the other afternoon my patience paid off. Three weeks after a light frost, I picked my first ripe persimmon off the tree under the late cloudy skies of an autumn afternoon. The fruit gave a bit when squeezed in.
The taste was heavenly. It had taken me four years to grow it, and it was the same taste I remember from trying my first NIKITA’S GIFT in graduate school so many years ago. It was like eating an even sweeter American persimmon with hints of the tropics but without the seeds. I’m still surprised how red NIKITA’S GIFT is when ready to eat. The fruit appears more like a small tomato than a persimmon.
I’ve got around 30 fruit total between the three trees. And, the are continuing to ripen as their yellowing leaves fall to reveal spheres that have been hidden in the foliage all season. The trees are still young, and I can’t wait to see them in future years even more laden with fruit for autumn, glowing orange-red against the browns and tans of a frosted landscape. Perhaps one day I’ll have so many I’ll have no choice but to gift NIKITA’S GIFT to others. Something so good must be shared.