kiwi – don't confuse the narrator

playing gooseberry

(Click here for a picture of male and female kiwi flowers)

As I’ve mentioned before, when I first saw kiwi fruit back in the Seventies, they were called Chinese gooseberries. But, although the fruit are greenish and furry and have tiny seeds, they aren’t really anything like gooseberries.

Or so I thought until we started growing them.

kiwi fruit in the early stages of development

male and female created he them

I posted a picture of what I mistakenly thought was a white laburnum a while back, and am amazed how many people have since turned up here after searching on that term.

It makes me think that other people may find this picture of male and female kiwi blossoms useful:

male kiwi flowers shown alongside female kiwi flowers

of kiwis and poetry

(Click here for a picture of male and female kiwi flowers)

We are gradually trying to replace our old grape vine with a kiwi vine. Our reasoning is mainly that the old vine is not very healthy and produces huge quantities of wasp-attracting fruit that gets mildew and moulders on a grand scale each year.

Since there’s some sixty square metres of trellis, it’s probably not surprising there’s more fruit than we can deal with. Kiwis seem as if they might be rather more controllable.

The photo shows a sucker on one of the kiwis we planted a couple of years ago. The vivid vermilion of these new shoots, and the furriness of the stalks and young leaves, never ceases to amaze me.
Continue reading “of kiwis and poetry”