So I have Elmwood, Saanichton, and a fuzzy male in small pots ready to plant soon.
My issue is of course I’ve read kiwi hate wet feet. Living in a 60 inch rainfall annually location, I’m trying to make it happen anyway.
I’m not sure how deep kiwi roots go or what depth needs to be well drained.
My current solution is building a 46 foot row trellis for support and boxing in parts of the the run with 2x12’s.
So each vine (2 female and 1 male) will have a raised bed approximately 2.5’ x 8’ x 12" tall with soil about 10 inches above grade. This ensures the top foot or so of soil is never waterlogged.
Any experienced kiwi growers want to chime in if this is a reasonable plan to have the vines at least not die?
So I’ve decided to build a raised row for the kiwi. A bit expensive but I’m moving dirt now.
Also just bought two more vines, Saanichton and Elmwood, because I didn’t take good care of the ones I’d already bought. I’ll plant the healthiest of what I have, or maybe plant them all and chose what to keep later.
The fastest way to kill kiwi vines is to cover the crown. I have learned this the hard way. They can take quite a bit of water but always a good idea to have a well drained location.
Not much to look at yet. The row on the right with the H-braces will be my grape row (Errante Noir).
The fresh dirt on the left will be my kiwi row. I need to put the posts in, but I wanted to move the dirt off my driveway now (and before the coming rain). About 3 yards of soil.
This isn’t the first time my phone has corrected ‘grape’ to ‘frappé", nor is it the first time’ row’ became ‘toe’.
I almost didn’t fix it.
Frappé toe instead of grape row.
Once my phone corrected something to ‘monotheistic llamas’. I kid you not…
So here is my dilemma. I have a 46 foot raised bed (no border) with posts already placed for my kiwi project.
I chose Elwood and Saanichton as the two female varieties.
I bought one each and a fuzzy male from Fruitwood Nursery in December. I was concerned about the shape they were in while dormant (didn’t take great care of them), so I bought all 3 again from Edible Landscaping last month.
Now they are all pushing new growth.
I am planing on planting the healthiest male on an adjacent deck cattle panel. That leaves the 46 foot row trellis for the females.
Should I just plan on one each of the females? Would planting all 4 females be overkill? Or I could plant all 4 and remove the least vigorous of each variety this coming winter?
Also an FYI my row is running east west. I plan on angling the top works towards the south for better sun exposure. My yard layout only had room for an east west run.
I would plant all 4. At some point you will want to add more varieties, so you can use the extras as rootstock. Kiwi is really easy to graft and grafting to established rootstock gives you a vigorous new vine that will often bloom the following year.
Don’t have experience myself but a few folks here in SoCal in the local CRFG seem to grow Vincent and bring a large number of cuttings to the scion exchange each year. And it keeps coming each year so I’m assuming they like it and are keeping it? I’m trying to root some of those cuttings as well as a male kiwi cutting (not sure about variety - maybe Tomuri). This is mostly for science since I don’t have the space to create a massive Kiwi trellis or hedge/etc.
I can’t control nature and there certainly will be a risk for early or late freezes.
Most literature I see says about 240 frost free days for kiwi. If you go by averages I get about 255-270days between freezes.
It is what it is. There are things I can do in the spring to protect the vines with minimal effort. Mind you, an early freeze here would maybe be low 30’s and not in the 20’s.
I am awful at growing hardy kiwi, think I’ve killed 4-6 of them so take my advice with a grain of salt haha. The saanichton seems to struggle on the east coast and JFE doesn’t sell that, but they do sell the Vincent as does McKenzie farms. I would imagine you’d be far better off with the Vincent as that seems to be the one southern nurseries sell. I just wanna grow the non fuzzy hardy varieties, they definitely have not been living up to their name, I think I need to plant them in shade.
