Newest Member Of The Family

Day 160: Meet the newest member of the family: Hardy Kiwi "Issai." I had the pleasure of sampling these grape-sized, fuzzless fruits last autumn at a farmers' market on the Olympic Peninsula. The variety is self-fertile and is hardy to an astonishing thirty degrees below freezing! The grower assured me that once established, the vine is trouble-free and produces prolifically in just a few years. Since I seem to be having good success with fruits, I decided to give it a try. Kiwi is a vigorous vine, so I also purchased a wrought-iron trellis with a swinging gate. I'll have to do some reorganization of the current garden's layout in order to have the gate where I want it, but that's part of the fun of gardening.

Fruit Of The Future

Day 4: Ah, there is a new fruit in my future! While in Chimacum, I visited the farmers' market and picked up a small basket of kiwi berries. This fuzzless version of the kiwi you find in grocery stores produces a grape-to-walnut sized fruit which I could argue is even more flavourful than its larger cousin, and the berries have no little gritty seeds as far as I can tell. I was pleased to discover that not all varieties require both male and female plants (I had visions of hand-pollinating again on a much larger scale), but hardy kiwi "Issai" is self-fertile! A larger yield can be achieved by planting two vines, so that's the plan for spring 2018. Cold-tolerant even in Zone 4 (I'm in Zone 7), they'll need a trellis or an arbour, and I know exactly where I want to put it: straight toward the crow board from the kitchen door.