Actinidia arguta 'Issai' - Hardy Mini Kiwifruit - 20 Seeds

Actinidia arguta 'Issai', commonly known as Hardy Mini Kiwifruit is a cousin of the better known brown, fuzzy Kiwifruit Actinidia chinensis available commercially.  It is a deciduous climber with simple ovate dark green leaves and bears small cup-shaped, fragrant white flowers followed by edible yellow green fruit.
The Hardy Mini Kiwifruit can tolerate temperatures below 15°C and is growing in popularity.  It bears smooth skinned fruit with the same taste and shape as Actinidia chinensis only smaller - 4 to 5cm.  They can be eaten whole without being peeled, dried or even made into wine.  The flavor is similar to the fuzzy Kiwfruit and very tasty!

The Hardy Kiwi plant is a woody perennial vine and requires trellissing and pruning and training similar to grapevines and can grow to a length of 10m if left unpruned.

It is normally a dioecious plant, meaning that male and female flowers are produced on separate plants.  For pollination and fruit development, it is usually necessary to have both male and female plants, but the issai form has been developed as a self-fertile form removing the need for separate male and female plants.

Mini Kiwi produces fruit on shoots from canes grown the previous year, pruning is done during the dormant season and during the growing season.  As with grapes, up to 70% of the wood is removed during dormant pruning, leaving some of last year's growth for fruiting.  The vines can be trained to a trellis or a variety of forms.

Kiwi can be grown in a variety of soil types as long as the pH is 5.5 - 7.0 and the soil is not poorly drained.  The roots are sensitive to fertiliser burn so use with caution but note that no fertiliser is needed in the first year. 
Apply 50 grams of a 10-10-10 of fertiliser per plant in the second year increasing by that amount per year up to 200 grams per plant.

Although the Hardy Kiwi is quite Winter hardy, new shoot growth and flowers are easily injured by frost, frost damage can kill the flowers and no fruit develops.

A mature Hardy Kiwi plant will produce about 15 to 30kg of fruit!  The fruits can be allowed to ripen on the vine or they can be harvested early and will ripen in storage, harvesting early will extend the storage life to about 2 months.

20 hard to get premium quality seeds and shipped on receipt of cleared funds.