I finished up picking the Hardy Kiwi this past weekend, though I may find a few stragglers.
After almost a complete zero last year (maybe 1/10th of a pint of Issai), 2018 was a record year, with 28.5 quarts picked. At 22 oz per quart (I measured them from 21-24 oz), that’s just under 40 pounds. And it only includes those I brought in, not the ones I ate while picking (any which were already soft).
Here’s one of 4 main pickings, from 10/14 (others were 10/7, 10/9, and 10/11). Mostly Issai (maybe a few Fortyniners).
But, with the up-tick in production, I wasn’t as happy with the quality. The first year I got a reasonable harvest was 2014. I went back and checked out my post to compare, and the brix levels this year are significantly lower. I had a lot of Issai in the 21-23 range then, while it was 16-18 this year. And given that they have a fairly strong taste, they really need that extra sugar to take them from “not bad” to “give me more”. I’ll try making jam out of these, as I can see it working well.
Jumbo was worse, with a brix in the 13-16 range. And while on the large side, it isn’t that big. It also gets something that looks like Sooty Blotch and Flyspec. The skins don’t taste bad, so I suspect that it is similar to apples- just cosmetic.
Jumbo:
I can’t distinguish Chico from Jumbo- both have large, so-so fruit. The only difference is that Chico had a smaller crop. It’s possible that I have a mis-label and they are both Jumbo. Anyone out there have Chico and can comment of how it should look?
The best flavored ones were Rossana and Cordifolia. Both are distinctive looking as well. Rossana has a dark redish/brown blush on the sun exposed part of the fruit and Cordifolia looks like little pumpkins (though the color is wrong…). Their brix was still only in the high teens, but I liked eating them quite a bit.
Rossana:
Cordifolia is the short squat one at the top:
Fortyniner was a strong second tier. Interestingly, only one small part of the vine fruited. I have two explanations-
1.) Maybe it was a bit more sun-exposed, as my pruning efforts this spring ran out of time when I arrived at this vine. So it didn’t get much pruning at all.
2.) The part which had the fruit was close to and in some cases was growing up the pine tree that has a male vine, so it could have gotten better pollination.
Two of the 3 vines that I hacked back hard this past winter (Ken’s Red and Geneva) had almost no fruit. It could be that I cut away almost all of the wood which had been sun exposed the previous year. The Issai was cut back hard as well, but since it isn’t quite as strong a grower, and because it doesn’t need pollination, it still set a record crop. I did try to stay on pruning it, to keep the fruit from being completely shaded.
Issai:
It is definitely easier to keep them pruned when they are given enough space. The last 3 I added (Jumbo, Chico, and Rossana in 2013) are on a large trellis (just over 20’x10’). This was the first year they produced and I think a lot of it was that I kept the new growth from going crazy. It’s much harder to do with my earlier plantings where I can only get at the vines from 1 direction (if that…), without climbing a rock wall.
You can see a few vines which are growing out of bounds, but this is actually well behaved/pruned compared to my other kiwi jungle. Also note the trees in the background on the left of the pic (South East). Hardy Kiwi seem fine with 2/3 of a day’s sun.
While the trellis has stood up OK, it has started to come loose a bit. It was held together by tension and a couple of the joints have slipped apart. It hasn’t hurt anything so far, as the vines have held up the trellis. 
I’m planning on putting a screw through this, to hold it in place…
edit: fixed spelling of Cordifolia
