Persimmon Seed Weather Prediction

Do you see the “spoon” in this persimmon seed?

The first year we lived on our property, we discovered we had a few trees with small, orange, crab-apple sized fruits on them. We weren’t sure exactly what they were until, one day in the fall, we tasted one and then we knew exactly what we had- a persimmon. The next year, we worked on baking with persimmons. This year, we were asked if we knew how to predict the winter weather season, from our persimmon seed kernels.

What you see in the persimmon can foretell the weather.

Our neighbor, Bob, was over one day and picked up a persimmon that had fallen to the ground. He showed us that if you take a persimmon seed, slice it in half, it would reveal an image that is said to predict the winter. There are three images that could find inside your persimmon seed: a spoon, knife, or fork.

A mild winter with light snow would be on the way if you find a fork.
A bitterly cold winter that you could “cut like a knife”… is coming with the knife.
A winter with heavy snow that needs shoveling, is in store if you see the spoon.

A mushy Persimmon is a sign that the fruit is ripe. Do not try to eat a persimmon before it’s time.

We had to see for ourselves

Intrigued by this, we went out picked up a handful of persimmons to check for variance.

We dug the seeds out of the mushy fruit flesh and worked on slicing them. The seeds are pretty tough to slice open. Please be careful not to slice your fingers if you get the opportunity to try this using locally grown persimmons. Let’s just say that we had a hard time properly slicing these seeds in half and we damaged a knife.

The images I “think” I saw looked like knives… but I didn’t have great cuts. Our good ol’ neighbor was able to get a great sample from our tree and a pretty clear image of what the winter is predicted to be like…. at least according to our persimmon seed and The Old Farmer’s Almanac folklore.