hello this is angela with parkrose permaculture it is a scorching hot day in portland oregon i got
very sunburned doing yard work today um probably should have made this video
in the heat of the day and saved my yard work for the evening but
that's how it goes so today i want to talk about a subject that i promised
y'all i would make a video on and that is the hearty kiwi why i love them and how i grow them
so i know i promised i would make this video a while ago and you know like it just kept getting
pushed to the back burner because there's so many other things i want to talk about that
felt more pressing i probably should have made this video a couple of weeks ago but that's okay
there's still tons we can learn right now about hearty kiwis i'm not going to talk today about
pruning them i do need to prune them extensively because they are a vigorous vining plant but now
is not the time of year to prune them so i'm going to be talking about their general cultivation
the varieties that i like and why i grow this plant so the hearty kiwi is actinidia or gouta
there is another species in this genus actinidia colomecta which is sometimes grown much more in
eastern europe and also there is a variegated variety that is grown as a landscape plant
but many of the cultivars of edible delicious hearty kiwi in the states are actinidia arguta
hearty kiwi is also known as the kiwi berry that's because unlike the fuzzy kiwi which
is large and has a hairy coarse outside the hearty kiwi is small about the size of
two grapes and it is smooth skinned and you can eat the whole thing in two bites
now let's start with my journey on how i started cultivating kiwis at home i began
with a desire to grow as many vertical crops as possible because my permaculture food forest here
is one quarter acre including the footprint of the house so i don't have that much space now
in permaculture when we talk about guilds there are different layers of plants and the vining
layer is extremely useful you can maximize your use of vertical space so that i'm going to grow
vertical climbers i'm going to utilize the space of my shed and i'm going to grow fuzzy kiwis
this was this was not a good scene so fuzzy kiwis are um grown with a male and a female plant and
you'll find hearty kiwis have this issue too male fuzzy kiwis have not been improved because all
you need them for is as a pollination partner so they've not been improved very much and they are
much more susceptible to disease so i was given someone was getting rid of their fuzzy kiwis
and i put in a female and a male the male promptly died i bought a replacement male the female become
became this huge rambling monster all over my shed the male was this spindly little sad thing and he
died i tried a third replacement male the males are not named varieties he also didn't make it
through a particularly snowy winter that we had i said forget this so i had given up on growing
the fuzzy kiwis just too much frustration and if you know my style of gardening if you're familiar
with my channel you'll know that i don't baby things if they're gonna take an extensive amount
of work with the exception of a few of my favorite apples if they're gonna take too much work i chuck
them and i try something else that's going to be sustainable because permaculture is about
sustainable agriculture if i have to put in a huge input of energy and time to get a minimal
crop then i'm not going to be successful i want to feel successful time to pitch those fuzzy kiwis
so i ended up selecting two varieties ken's red and my all-time favorite after trying
probably seven or eight varieties of hearty kiwis over the years i settled on dumbarton
oaks such a great hearty kiwi actually you can't go wrong with any of the varieties but i have a
soft spot for dumbarton oaks i think it tastes fantastic it is a green hearty kiwi thin skinned
good size great flavor ken's red also good has a red blush so um i put in my male and my females
on my wood shed which you can see behind me which i have all kinds of projects stacked up
for my greenhouse this is my male right here and the females are over on the other side
now the male i can prune smaller because i only need him for the flowers and that's it the females
they get quite big and each vine can hold 50 to 100 pounds of fruit on top of potentially
100 pounds of vine so between my male and my females i thought i need the sturdiest
structure in my yard that is not my house because vines are vigorous climbers kiwis are not a great
idea to put on your house much like a wisteria like don't don't do that don't do that provide
a good strong structure in your garden a wood shed works great though i see people who try and
grow their hearty kiwis on these little metal arches or even a tea trellis in the yard and
y'all you're gonna be in a world of hurts real quick when you get a windstorm or just the weight
of the vine laden with fruit yanks that trellis over you want the biggest sturdiest strongest
support you can find to grow kiwis that's not a bad thing you're looking at a fruit
a crop of 50-100 pounds per vine so incredibly abundant and productive now you can prune them
excessively and keep them smaller but why not let the vine exhibit its own vineness why not let it
grow in the growth habit that it wants which is a rambly vine and then it will produce a lush heavy
crop for you i will also say the mark shepherd restoration agriculture approach is to grow your
vine crops up trees now i don't have any large overstory canopy trees in the wild these plants
would be growing and scrambling up the trunk of a tree up into the canopy i didn't have any
large enough trees at the time i put these in to justify planting them around a tree i felt like
they had the potential to cause damage to my young tree branches the same way they would cause damage
to a weak trellis so i chose chose to put them on a structure but if you are growing actinidia
or gouta and you have very strong big trees why not use nature's trellis and grow them up a tree
okay so let's talk about what you need to grow this plant besides a strong traumas actinidia
likes full sun although some of the varieties and the species colomicta do well in partial shade
if you have a red variety of hearty kiwi it will not get a red blush on it if it is not
given sufficient sun that includes leaves of the kiwi shading the developing fruit so if
you grow a red variety and you really want that bright red color the fruit will ripen but it
won't get that deep red blush unless you prune back the leaves and give it full sun exposure
it needs a good loamy well draining soil there are a couple of things that can really hamper
your hearty kiwis particularly the males which are less improved and tend to be weaker and those are
multiple kinds of root rot well here in the pacific northwest i have a dense clay soil
that holds water for a very long time so i did amend the soil i built up the soil and i added
lots of extra humus and tried to encourage better drainage before i planted my kiwis
so the kiwis flower in late may here in portland oregon the males open and the females open and one
male can pollinate up to six female plants so that means much like having ducks and chickens
the males are useful for one short term and they can service many females now once the fruit has
set i have found that if there are many hands and clusters all the way down the vine i might want
to support it because the weight of the maturing fruit can break the vines if it gets windy so just
be aware of that if you have any tendrils hanging off the sides of your structure if they are laden
with fruit and you have a really windy day they can be prone to breakage i have found as i will
show you in a moment when they break sometimes you can just tape them back together and they will get
sufficient nutrition from the rest of the plant for the remainder of the season to ripen the fruit
do not underestimate gorilla tape and duct tape in the garden for broken plants
so here the male is growing directly next to my buffet's green gauge plum and i do have to
constantly be aware that it likes to wrap around the plum and use it as a trellis it doesn't hurt
the plum it doesn't strangle it but it does get real rambly when i spoke earlier about those
long shoots you can see here i cut it back a little bit just a couple of weeks ago and it's
already sent out new large shoots so here's the mail here's what the flowers look like
they're really attractive little white flowers a little bit reminiscent of the akibia in my mind
you can see the vine is really attractive red and green with these lovely waterfall of
leaves so let's walk across here through my wood pile of logs i have yet to split
and this is one of the females so the female flower looks very much like the male flower
and they come in clusters and here's one of the issues that i had remember i talked about using
tape we had a branch break here and i've taped it along the way and my husband actually helped
put a wire along it and support it off the shed in the hopes that all of these
baby fruit that are setting will go ahead and mature there's fruit all the way down
all the way down so hopefully this little jury rigging here will get those fruit to mature now
your kiwi can grow so fast and so vigorously you blink and you miss it a wind pulled it off the
top of my shed where i had originally trained it and flopped it over here at the time i got to it
i was really worried about the weight and the flowers and breaking branches so i didn't want
to train it back up on top we actually built a little support here it's very hard to see
but like a little shelf and a hook
in here so we could lift all of the vines and just rest them in this little crook
to keep them supported as they mature fruit this year so that i can get them trained back up in
the fall after i have harvested the fruit to us that seemed like the best choice right now to
create a support to hold up the fruit without the potential of breaking any more of these
vines and losing any more fruit for the season
so the fruit here takes quite a long time to ripen they are generally ready here in october and that
makes for a nice fall crop the fruit will keep in the fridge for several weeks after harvest
they may wrinkle a little bit as they age but the flavor just becomes concentrated and even better
in my opinion when you are growing these kiwi vines please be aware just like with fuzzy kiwi
it may take six years for them to flower and fruit much like my persimmons and my pawpaws patience is
a virtue nature moves slowly and it's worth it so if you think you really want to grow hearty kiwis
create that really strong trellis now and get them in the ground now one green world is the
best source for the extensive number of varieties that are available that i have found anywhere and
my plants came strong and healthy from them i am lucky that i can drive to their store and they
are local now a couple of issues to be aware of in terms of animals that interact with this plant in
unexpected ways i have found squirrels absolutely love the fruit and they will pick it off of
the vine about four days before i'm ready to so this is a crop you may need to net or you may need
to just pay attention to the squirrels in your garden because they find it very tasty the second
issue with actinidia is that the vines themselves the leaves all parts of the plant give off a very
faint aroma reminiscent of catnip and cats can be super attracted to this plant and scratch and
rub and damage it particularly at the base and around those roots where it is more delicate and
prone to issues already so just be aware you may find if you have felines in your garden and you
suddenly find damage on your hearty kiwis those felines may be the culprit as they are attracted
to this plant even though it does not have the psychoactive effect of catnip it smells like it
so
so thanks for watching i hope you got something out of this video i hope you learned a little
bit about growing hearty kiwis maybe they will spoil you for all other kiwis just as
they have done for me the complex flavor profile and sweetness of the hearty kiwi
makes it vastly superior to the fuzzy kiwi and i don't want to grow anything else in my garden
it does super well here and i'm super happy with this crop so maybe if you can find the
right growing conditions and the right structure for it consider it for your garden because it's a
real treat and real hard to find in stores if you got something out of this video please give it a
thumbs up please subscribe to my channel and check out my patreon in the description below thanks