Growing Kiwis in a cold climate. They are ready!

Hey, it's a great time of year. Check out what we are about to do. So, we're going to head into here into the chicken run. And we got the girls back in the cage so we don't freak them out. And we are going to live in this little food forest um cave here, this little arborum. And we are going to pick kiwi. So, cold hearty kiwi. So, I came by here and I was feeling these and how they should basically feel like most fruit, they should pretty much just want to fall off. So, if you give them a little shake, right? So, these ones aren't done, but there are some that are um actually soft and squishy like this one. So, if you can if you can kind of squeeze them open, then they're ready. And these taste Oh, these are all ready here. And these all taste um just like a kiwi. So, we've been picking some. Okay, so we've been picking some and they're actually just like a kiwi and they taste just like a kiwi except hairless and they're like grape sized. And maybe we'll do like a little taste test uh with Jackson or Trish. They're so good. And when you want them is when they're like squishy. They're just going to fall apart. They're like mush. That's when they're the sweetest. And when they taste uh just like the the flavor uh the depth of the flavor profile is just so um nice. I can't come up with any better words. Uh it's just it's a really deep complex kiwi taste. It's just fantastic. And you can kind of see here. This is our chicken run. So, this used to just be a grass. Again, like everything else, I built a a little arbor out of cedar and then we grew grapes, uh, raspberries in front. We've got walnuts in there some somewhere. I think you can see the tree and it's acting as a trellus. So, that's walnut right there. Um, and then see how it's kind of extends out. There's a walnut there, too. Uh you have to be a little careful with these cuz they've grown so well uh using the chicken manure, you know, cuz it's kind of in the chicken run uh that it it just absolutely totally takes over. Let's see if I do like a half zoom. So, this is like a weird kind of fish fisheye style um zoom, but it lets you kind of see really well everywhere. Now, I thought the ones on the sunny edge, so this is the south edge. I thought these ones would all be ready, but oddly enough, they're not. These ones are still still pretty hard. You can just see there's like literally thousands of kiwi everywhere. There's so many of them in here. They grow in these little clusters. See? Just tons and tons of food everywhere. You kind of lift up the whole vine. You just see how much of it's on here. So, it's nice to notice when these things are coming um ripening up so that you can get in there and start picking them. And that kind of extends your harvest a little bit. So, instead of getting these all at once, if you don't notice that they're ripening up, you can kind of come in here and uh start eating them right away. Let's see. I was picking this front edge. Yeah, I think I was somewhere around here. You can see that we've got grapes growing in there as well, so we can snack on those. Yeah, just food everywhere. Super yummy. Yeah, these ones here. So, right now, I'd say 5% of them are ready. There's one just like totally squishy. Oh, so good. So, I'll try these out. These are arguda kiwis and you need a male and a female. So we have one male for every six uh females roughly around that and we seem to get fantastic pollination with that. So try them out. They're a very aggressive vining crop. They will grow up everything. I would definitely recommend that you be careful where you plant these. Um, definitely don't plant them anywhere where they can get into your house, rip apart any kind of like uh vinyl siding or anything. They'll just get into everything. They'll rip your sophets sophets off your uh roofs and stuff like that. So, just be careful where you put them. Uh, but they are very, very prolific growers, especially if they have a source of fertility like a chicken pen. That being said, they are so good at acting as a visual barrier for aerial predators. So, we've got this arbor and we've got the vines growing up. It all in the hot hot drought of a summer that we just had underneath. You could feel it just walking in. You could feel it dropped 10° and the girls were super happy. Even though, you know, we were hitting very, very high temperatures with no rain at all uh this summer. It also lets their water kind of last a little bit longer because it's shaded. It doesn't evaporate as much. It's a little cooler. So, definitely try them out. Uh our guda kiwis fantastic companion plant to many plants but also fantastic companion plant to chickens. Thanks for watching.