Kiwi fruit - tips please

[A Life Less Simple]

Ok, I have my free kiwi fruit from GYO's last issue, now I'm looking for some growing tips as I've never grown one before.

Should I leave it out during the winter or bring it in? Is it ok to give it lots of water, the soil keeps getting very dry but I don't want to kill it by over watering it? Does it do better if you manure it or should I just leave it? When does it flower? And most importantly, how do I get the better fruits?

[SlugLobber]

Hi there,

My Kiwi is a thirsty little thing, but it is in a container. Sometimes I top up the soil with manure (watering rinses some soil out!). I water every other day in summer.

I leave mine out in the winter, but I wrap it in fleece after the foliage is shed, only removing the fleece in the Spring, when harsh frosts have finished. They're not very tolerant of temps below zero!

As for better fruits? Well, hopefully you have a self-pollinating variety and it should be a doddle. Mine is SUPPOSED to be, but I have yet to get a fruit from it (this is its second year), so hopefully someone will come along and give us BOTH tips, lol!

[greasyfire]

the leaves on my one are dying

[Brengirl]

I can't give any advice of value because although mine has flowered it has never held fruit. I didn't know that they had a leaf fall. Mine appears to be evergreen

[Angelflower]

My kiwi is naked too completely no leaves at all, it was a scrawny little thing to start with tho' & I only got him last year i cant remember his leaves dropping then tho' should I be worried

[starloc]

They seem to be perfectly fine outside, even in the very cold bit early this year, they loose there leaves in the winter, not if you keep thm in the house though, they need very large amount of chill hours to flower so best to let them get cold, i didnt even put anmy frost fleece over them, just left them looking like a mass of dead twigs, there giant now, no bits died

[scarey55]

Mine looks the same Starloc. It looks very sad now after the frosts but then it did last year too.

There are sone pruning instructions on here - just search Kiwi and look at posts by TonyF he has given some useful advice about them, too bad I didn't follow it this year, we had loads of flowers around June/July time but they didn't come to much because I didn't prune it.

The flowers on mine arrived in the third year, I have it outside against a wall but haven't given it any other protection. If you do plant it outside in the open remember, it can get bleddy big

The only other thing I did was to hand pollinate some of the flowers - don't know if it helps but...