Does anyone have any experience with growing Kiwi's?
In my part of the world Kiwi's aren't normally grown, but they can be. I've got enough space to grow them and I like the idea of one more edible plant around my home so I'm going to do it. The problem that I've run into is not really knowing the best route for building a structure for them to grown on. From what I've read a kiwi plant could have upwards of 100 pounds of fruit on it in a single year so what ever I would build would have to be very sturdy. It'd also have to be something that could make picking the fruit reasonably easy. I'm not sure what the best route is, or what to expect in the first few years so if anyone has any guideance from experience I would love to hear it. I'm in north east Indiana in zone 6.
First thing to decide Teddy is what variety you plan to plant. Many of the older vars need a partner as they are single sex. There are some self fertile vars around now though.
The easiest and simplest method is good strong stakes placed every six foot or so with a good quality strand of wire attached at between waist and shoulder height. This will take the weight okay and allow you easy access for pruning and picking.
If you use one of the single sex vars then the old way of growing was to have a higher wire two to three feet above the other with the male plant on this so that they were in close proximity for pollination.
Or if there were several rows then the male would be grown between two rows of female plants.
They can grow very strongly indeed. Putting many feet on each year and need heavy pruning to keep under control.
The easiest and simplest method is good strong stakes placed every six foot or so with a good quality strand of wire attached at between waist and shoulder height. This will take the weight okay and allow you easy access for pruning and picking.
If you use one of the single sex vars then the old way of growing was to have a higher wire two to three feet above the other with the male plant on this so that they were in close proximity for pollination.
Or if there were several rows then the male would be grown between two rows of female plants.
They can grow very strongly indeed. Putting many feet on each year and need heavy pruning to keep under control.
Well, I've decided to take another shot at growing some kiwi's.
I've bought two more pairs of hardy kiwi's from Hirt's and they should be at the house when I get home tonight. I've bought two different type of kiwi's so I should have two girls and two boys so there should be plenty of cross polinization going on. I've also got two more self polinating Issai kiwi's coming too.
What's held me up for so long was deciding on what type of trellis to use for these kiwi's and I recentlyI got lucky at work and was able to take some pallets that were 8' wide by 10' long home. I'm going to make a hasty type of shed out of these pallets and let the kiwi's use them as a trellis.
With the trellis part settled, I'm just going to be planting the kiwi's and loading some mulch around them to help keep them moist. At this point in the year, I'm just hoping to get them in the ground and established so that they can take off next year.
I've bought two more pairs of hardy kiwi's from Hirt's and they should be at the house when I get home tonight. I've bought two different type of kiwi's so I should have two girls and two boys so there should be plenty of cross polinization going on. I've also got two more self polinating Issai kiwi's coming too.
What's held me up for so long was deciding on what type of trellis to use for these kiwi's and I recentlyI got lucky at work and was able to take some pallets that were 8' wide by 10' long home. I'm going to make a hasty type of shed out of these pallets and let the kiwi's use them as a trellis.
With the trellis part settled, I'm just going to be planting the kiwi's and loading some mulch around them to help keep them moist. At this point in the year, I'm just hoping to get them in the ground and established so that they can take off next year.