Organic Gardening How To Blog

This Organic Gardening How To is about growing your own hardy kiwi. Hardy kiwi is a particular type of kiwi and the plant can survive temperatures down to -30 degrees F. The fruit is very sweet and has a terrific aroma and flavor. Start your own hardy kiwi from seeds and start them in 5-gallon buckets. If propagated, from the ground, hardy kiwi plants often don’t survive the first year because of inadequate drainage. Transplant the kiwis from the bucket into the ground after their root system is well established. This is normally done after their first winter and after the last chance of frost.

Hardy kiwi are not heavy eaters, but putting some compost or well-cured manure into the hole that you dug for them is beneficial. They like full sun to partially shaded areas. Be sure the soil drains reasonably well. Mulch the topsoil around the plants to help keep moisture in the ground. Hardy kiwi prefer soil with a pH of 6.5.

Plant hardy kiwi in rows, spacing them about 15 feet apart. Kiwi’s are a fast growing vine that can grow up to 10 feet high and produce over 100 lbs. of fruit. Thus, it’s important to grow your hardy kiwi on a trellis so you can properly manage the growth and access the fruit. Below, I’ve included an Organic Gardening How To video on how to build this trellis.

Once planted, prune the kiwi back to two buds. These two buds will develop into shoots. Once the shoots have developed, choose the stonger shoot to become your main trunk and remove the other one.

Tie this trunk to the main post of your trellis. Once it has achieved the height of the trellis, cut off the growing tip. Buds will develop here and grow into shoots. Choose 2-4 shoots to become your growing branches and remave all others.

Now that you’ve created the shape of the plant, future pruning will be done to ensure fruit growth. Hardy kiwi fruit develops on vines that were created in the previous year. Prune your kiwi plants in the early spring before buds develop. Remove any vines that are over 1 year old and remove any vines that had fruit in the previous year.

Harvesting kiwi fruit that is grown on a trellis is easy. To determine when to harvest, pick a few and let them sweeten on their own for 2-3 days. When you find the sweetness that you’re looking for, pick the remainder and refrigerate.

Kiwi fruit can be kept in the refrigerator for 5-6 weeks. Remove the ones that you want to eat 2-3 days ahead of time and let them reach their full flavor.

The following Organic Gardening How To video provides some more detailed information on growing your own hardy kiwi’s:

And this Organic Gardening How To video is a good video to help you build a stong trellis for all those kiwis that you’re going to grow:

And if you would like to learn more Organic Gardening How To tips, read Organic Gardening Magic or My Organic Food Garden. Or, read them both! They both have a 60-Day Money Back Guarantee.

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