{"id":16297,"date":"2024-10-25T21:58:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T19:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/kiwai-harvest\/"},"modified":"2025-02-11T22:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T21:47:44","slug":"kiwai-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/kiwai-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwai harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kiwai (Actinidia arguta) are a member of the kiwi family (Actinidia deliciosa). As with most kiwi, one male and several females are usually planted to produce fruit. <\/p>\n\n

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At the top of our plot, two females and a male pollinator are planted at the edge. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It’s a climbing plant, with strong, chaotic growth, sometimes difficult to control. These were planted 10 years ago and have hardly ever been pruned. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Kiwai plants produce a large quantity of fruit in October, quite reliably every year and without the need for special fertilizers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Fruits are like small, hairless kiwis, often in dense clusters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They are eaten whole, with the skin, after removing the few hairs on the tip.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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To eat them straight from the tree, you need to choose ripe fruit. It’s very difficult to see, as there’s no change in color. The only way is to touch them: if they give a little under your fingers, the fruit is ripe. The hard ones are not yet edible. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Kiwais ripen very gradually on the plant, from mid-September to mid-October for this variety (Issai kiwai). Patience is needed to select only the ripe ones. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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You can also pick them while they’re still hard and leave them to ripen at home, but in a cool place. Here again, you need to feel them from time to time, to know if they’re ready to eat. Even the hardest will soften and become very tasty after a week or so. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The taste of Issai kiwais is extraordinary. The tender pulp is similar to kiwifruit, but both sweeter and more acidic depending on the degree of ripeness, with an intense licorice-like taste in the smooth skin. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They can be eaten fresh or frozen, after cutting off both ends: stem and hair. In our experience, however, they are not very suitable for drying: too small and the seeds become troublesome.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There are many varieties of kiwai, each with its own pollinator. In this hedge there are 4 females and one male, Jumbo and Jumbo Red varieties. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They were planted 4 years ago and have already grown well, but are just starting to fruit a little.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Jumbo kiwai are a little later, around mid-October.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They are reminiscent of mini apples, but their kiwi flavour is very intense. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The skin is a little tinged with red, the pulp is very green and the taste is excellent.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Left kiwai Issai, right kiwai Jumbo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Feijoa guavas (Acca sellowiana) are harvested at the same time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Grafted trees planted three years ago are starting to produce. They make bigger fruits, it’s very clear. This is the “Unique” variety. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The mandarins are also close to harvest. More on that soon. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kiwai (Actinidia arguta) are a member of the kiwi family (Actinidia deliciosa). As with most kiwi, one male and several females are usually planted to produce fruit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3213,"featured_media":16291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}