As you can see from my location, I’m in Portland, Oregon.
Years ago, someone gave me a male kiwi vine. Apparently, they are praised for their pretty leaves. And they are…they’re green, thin, wide…and the bottom 1/3 of the leaf turns a very pretty pink color.
My friend specifically noted that it was a male kiwi. It never occurred to me until this week to inquire if I buy a female vine if I’d get fruit. I don’t know why; I just figured they couldn’t grow here. But a friend of mine said she just bought a pair, and she’s looking forward to the fruit.
So I bought a female companion for my male. (It was so cute…he straightened himself up, took a shower, cleaned his roots…)
According to the label, the type of kiwi that does well in Portland is not like the kind I buy in stores (which is good…because I can buy those in stores). Each fruit is small–about the size of a grape. And the skin has no fuzz, so I’m supposed to just pop the whole thing in my mouth. The label promises some bizarre amount of vitamins and taste compared to the other kind.
Do you have one? Have you had success? I’ve gotten my hopes up for so many other fruits in my yard that didn’t work out…I’m really going to be disappointed if this doesn’t turn out well.
I also planted five boysenberry bushes this weekend. And this will be the second year my grape vine produces. Someone also gave me a blueberry bush last August that is (and I’m not exaggerating) six feet tall and six feet across. I planted it among my ten year old blueberry bushes that are still only 18 inches tall so they’d get the message. Oh, and maybe the strawberries I started from seed last year will bear fruit.
Now…if they could just hybridize an avocado tree that would grow in Portland…
I’m down I-5 from you and I have a male and two female kiwis. I put them in last year. My understanding from Sunset is that they won’t fruit for a couple of years but meanwhile make a good privacy screen. Most varieties are supposed to be pretty cold-hardy.
If you haven’t already, go to http://www.onegreenworld.com and get the One Green World catalogue (they’re in Molalla). All kinds of fruit and vegetable trees, vines, etc. you’ve never heard of.
I live on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and we have a male and female kiwi. Ours are the kind you can buy in the store. They grow just fine here (maybe not as good as in New Zealand, but still pretty well). They are harvested while they are still hard (in the fall) and brought inside so that they ripen. It’s my understanding that that’s how it’s done in their native country too.
I’ve also bought the small kind from the store and liked them, but they are quite different than the large kiwis. I think I might prefer the large variety, but perhaps I got inferior quality small ones.
I’ve grown kiwi fruit vines from seed; they’re really easy and will apparently survive outdoors here in the UK. I’ve never grown them to maturity, partly because you can’t tell which of your seedlings is male and which is female, so planting them out could result in disappointment, particularly as they take a few years to come into flower. There are monoecious cultivars available - maybe I should just buy one of those…
The species grown as a decorative plant is Actinidia kolomikta - it’s a lovely plant.
I’ve grown the store-bought ones (Actinidia deliciosa) in Maryland. They survive winters here quite well, but won’t produce ripe fruit because the season is too short. The one I grew was a male. It flowered twice before it succumbed to some disease.
I grow Issai kiwis now. These are the monoecious cultivars Mangetout is talking about. They grow furiously here. They ripen just about the time of the first frost, so sometimes they are ruined by it. You pick them when they’re slightly soft and wrinkled. If you eat them to soon they’re very sour and harsh.
There is another species of Actinidia with a common name of “cat dope”, because cats will chew and lick the vines, and get stoned. I don’t have my books here at work to look it up, and Google searches only turn up “fat cat dope dealer”. :rolleyes:
I think they will ripen off the vine - at least the fruit I buy in the supermarket goes from rock hard and sour to sweet and soft in a week or so.
Tip for peeling: Slice off both ends, insert a teaspoon with the rounded back of the spoon just under the skin, work it around the fruit, repeat at the other end and squeeze - out pops the fruit with very little waste or mess.
I’ve got some Kiwi plants growing in the back yard along with Raspberry, Grapes, Pears, Apples, Rhubarb, and Blueberry. Been making wine out of most of the stuff with some good results.
As far as the Kiwi goes, I think the male and female plants are on opposite sides of the yard so they must be hand pollinated, which explains why I haven’t seen any fruit since we moved in 5 years ago. I think the previous owner pollinated the plants and that’s why we saw fruit that fall. It is of the hardy variety and the fruits were about plum size.
I seem to recall that deliciosas need 10 frost free months to ripen. Here in Maryland we have about 6. The hardy kiwis would probably be ok, but the deliciosas would likely just rot.
That is very interesting, because I had to move the male plant. While I did so, the neighbor’s cat came over to where I was. This cat has never let me pet him. He loves my yard, but as soon as I come into view, he’s off like a flash. But he came over and started to lick the male (hee hee) while I had it laid out on the ground. I thought, “What the…”