Kiwi fruit

Anyone growing kiwi fruit?

I've never really considered it before because I just assumed it was tropical. The seed catalogues list it as being ok against a south face wall in a sheltered spot. I can offer it that.

Does anyone know, how many plants I'd need to get a decent crop? And how long I'd have to wait from being planted, to producing fruit?

 

I don't know a lot except that you will need at least two plants, a male and a female plant, if you want to get fruit.

 

Hi Clueless.
Yes you can grow kiwi , I do have a jenny kiwi self fertilize , usually this plant are coming into male and female , seen picture of kiwi growing in UK , more funny I`ve actually got a plant grown from normal fruit kiwi that got from tesco it`s now 2 year old and I started as an experiment , belive or not it went trough the last 2 winter and actually doing even better that the one i both , the one from seed is actually bigger then the one I both in the garden center.
the one in the picture is the one from the seed this picture is from last April ......btw they are really easy to germinate.

 

Just be careful the hairs on the stems are very fine. I was told that they can cause problems if you inhale them - this would happen if you brush past plant or whilst cutting back. Not sure how valid this is but just be aware. The plants are also very vigorous and can run wild within a small garden. In the UK it is unlikely you will get much edible fruit.

Mark Pumphrey

 

I have 4 cuttings/hope for the best...

 

Ok...I got this picture from will giles garden , for who dasn`t know him he is located in Norwich and this picture is from October.

 

Looks good Sal73

 

Sometime we are looking too far away to grow something new and never seen before , while you can get some amazing tropical plants from free seeds , Kiwi can take easy -20 and it dasn`t cause problems if you inhale , the hairs on the stem and fruit is just to keep insect away (insect trouble free plant) ....for who never tryed before try to grow ....laquet (fruit available in any asian store and frost hardy) , lemon grass , pomegranate(frost hardyto -20), sharon fruit , lemon, mandarin, chilli, cassava, figs, date palm, opuntia, olives and so on.
for who never heard about Will Giles tropical plant visit is web site or is garden.

 

Hi Sal! Do you know if Jenny is a grafted vine, or a completely new cultivar? I wasn't able to find this out with a quick google search. All that I could find was that the fruits are quite small, but that would probably be no bad thing as far as achieving ripe fruits in the UK.

I did find this page though with good cultivation notes for Kiwi fruit in general............

Kiwifruit

Admittedly, it is an Australian based page.

 

Hi Longk , as far as I know the jenny is a species from China and not a crafted , the fruit should be really small , but it dasn`t perform really well , like i said the one from seed it actually bigger then the Jenny.
I was reading on the daily mail about a cultivated outdoor kiwi in Kent that will be put on the market next year , plus as I can tell you I`ve seen fruiting plants in North Italy where the temperature goes - 18 , apparently they have a really hardy variety , the same cultivated in Kent.
my suggestion !!!! get a kiwi from the supermarket (my one is from Chile)scoop the seeds out and just grow it .
the Chilenian I`ve got has some really dark red hairy stem , worth growing just for that .
if you grow more then 1 it will be better as Kiwi is male or female.

 

Hi Dave,

I grew a self polinating one but the fruit was tiny.



Mind you, it was in a very exposed place, caught all the wind.

 

My only growing of Kiwi goes back about 20yrs.

I grew from seed and the plants were very vigourous and looked good with the red hairy stems.

Mine never flowered in about 10yrs so I gave up on them.

Problem with seed grown is you dont know if you have male or female until they flower, so you end up growing on plants that might just be all the same sex.

If you are after real fruit production you need to grow a plant of a known variety, do some homework on what is available and buy plants from a reputable grower I would say.

Personally, I'm not struck on kiwi fruit, much prefer a decent grape.:WINK1:

 

Jenny is the one that I spotted in one of the seed catalogues, which gave me the idea in the first place. The catalogue says it is self fertile and very vigorous, so much so that it hints that it might not be the best choice for smaller gardens unless you're willing to keep on top of the pruning.

 

Thanks all, I've read an taken in everything that's been said. I'll be having a think and maybe get something on the go early next year.

Kiwi sort of jumped out at me because I was thinking of a fruit that I could grow in the front garden that is sufficiently inconspicuous so that local kids don't recognise and steal. Kiwi never occurred to me until I spotted it in the seed catalogue. I reckon not many people in the area will recognise the plant, and in any case, the fruit is kind of low profile with its pastel green hue, and hairy skin, hiding behind similar green leaves.

 

Dave...Kiwi are very easy to roots from cutting , why don`t you wait for the right period of the year and ask for some cutting? same with grape or figs , plus if is fruit that you want to grow why don`t try some novel plant like the hardy paw paw or the strawberry tree?
ps do you really have kids that will eat fruit? the only fruit that kids are eating today is jaffa cake and chips ...

My Fruit project at the moment are ....pinapple , dragon fruit , pepino melon , passion fruit (finger cross the plant are still alive) , guava , lemon , mandarin ,figs and kiwi.
I will may fail but it fun to grow.