Garden persimmons, monkeys, and hoshigaki

Why the town says pick early

Yugawara is a citrus town, but plenty of its gardens also have a persimmon tree, and by late October many of them are heavy with orange fruit. Yugawara Town says about 30 Japanese macaques live around the town and turn up all year in Onsenba, Miyakami, Miyashita, Shirohori, Kajiya, Yoshihama, and Kawabori. Its advice for fruit trees is direct: harvest early, even if the fruit has a better moment still to come, and do not leave fruit or vegetable scraps outdoors, where they become food for wild animals.

The town’s own numbers show why. Its survey of monkey damage in 2025 drew 453 responses, and fruit taken from garden trees accounted for 318 damage reports. Among the produce the town lists as taken from home gardens are persimmons and chestnuts. Kanagawa Prefecture’s plan for fiscal 2026 says Yugawara will map the fruit trees that draw monkeys and notify their owners, and notes that farmers are being forced to give up crops that draw them.

An early harvest suits hoshigaki

For a sweet persimmon, picking early costs some flavour. For an astringent one, it barely matters, because nobody eats astringent persimmons straight off the tree. Kanagawa’s Agricultural Technology Center says astringent persimmons are the usual fruit for hoshigaki, that sweet persimmons can be dried too, and that a variety which is sweet in the Kanto region can stay astringent when grown elsewhere. Its advice is to use whatever persimmons are at hand. If you have just moved into a house with a tree and do not know which kind it is, a small bite of one ripe fruit settles it quickly: astringent fruit dries the mouth at once.

The center’s method is short. Choose well-ripened fruit that is still firm. Peel it thickly, because skin left in the grooves wrinkles and spoils the finished fruit, and leave a piece of the fruiting stem so it can be tied to a string. Hang the fruit so no two touch. If there is no stem, the center suggests threading fruit on a bamboo skewer, laying it in a basket, or using a container or tray.

Slow drying is the point

Drying is not only about losing water. The center says drying also removes the astringency, so fruit dried quickly in a dehydrator never loses it completely and ends up stiff. Drying takes a long time, so start in a spell of settled weather. Farm households traditionally hang the fruit from poles under the eaves, which keeps the rain off. The peeled surface does need to dry fairly soon, and for a small batch the center suggests setting the fruit in front of a warm-air heater until the outside is dry.

After about a week to ten days the surface dries. That is the first round of kneading: work each fruit between thumb and forefinger from the outside in. Five days to a week later, knead again right to the center. Seeds can come out at this stage with a small knife and tweezers. The center adds that leaving finished fruit among dry straw for two or three days and then in cold wind brings up a white bloom, and that hoshigaki keep in a paper box in a cool, dark place. The thick peel you cut away dries crisp in an airy spot and was used to sweeten pickled daikon.

Where to hang it near Yugawara

A string of peeled persimmons under the eaves is a tidy version of the food the town is asking people to clear away, and the town says monkeys can open sliding doors and screen doors and come inside. Our suggestion, in the districts the town names, is to dry the fruit where the troop cannot reach it: indoors by a window with air moving, or in a room you can close. The center’s note that a tray or container works when there is no good place to hang is useful here. Wherever the fruit hangs, put the peel and any spoiled fruit in the rubbish, not on the compost heap outside.

If monkeys arrive while you are working, the town’s advice is to avoid eye contact and back away without turning your back on them, and never to feed them. Kanagawa lists the Seishō macaques as wildlife at risk of extinction, and catching them without permission is prohibited. Yugawara Club, our sister site, explains how residents can get chase-off firecrackers from the town and how to report damage, in its guide to the town’s monkey measures.

Mould means the bin

While the fruit hangs, keep an eye out for mould. The center explains how to bring up the white bloom on finished hoshigaki, and that bloom is meant to be there. Blue, green, black, or fuzzy growth is different. MAFF, Japan’s agriculture ministry, says food that has gone mouldy is to be thrown away, that cutting off the visible mould only removes what you can see, and that many mould toxins are heat-stable and survive boiling or grilling. Some moulds in Japan produce strong toxins such as aflatoxins, and you cannot tell which is which by looking. Throw out the affected fruit and keep watching the rest.

Your tree, or someone’s gift

This is a project for your own tree. Persimmons over a wall, in an abandoned-looking orchard, or on a branch hanging over the road all belong to someone, and taking them is theft under Article 235 of the Penal Code. If a neighbour’s tree is heavy with fruit they are not going to eat, ask; given the town’s request to pick early, many owners are glad to have it gone. Yugawara Club, our sister site, has the wider picture of the town’s fruit: the citrus that fills its terraces, and the persimmons, loquats, and chestnuts that grow in its gardens.