The Arctic Kiwi

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When we first bought this property, we were very surprised to hear that at one time Kiwis were cultivated. Although quite a few were planted, by the time we arrived most of them were overtaken by weed. They were hidden primarily overrun by wild Grapes and wild Prairie Rose along with a variety of trees including Staghorn Sumac, Mulberry, Black Locust, Black Walnut, Ash and Boxelder.

Our original overgrown Kiwi field

We have been calling these small fruits Arctic Kiwis. However, we are somewhat uncertain of the specific variety. Technically, they may be one of hundreds of variations of this plant.

The Kiwi was originally called the Chinese Gooseberry. A change in name and some good marketing generated the produce most of us are now familiar with.

It turns out that Chinese Gooseberries come in many different sizes, shapes and colours. The ones we have are much smaller than those found on grocery store shelves (basically the size of a large grape or olive). They tend to be "boxy" in shape and blush red in the fall. With their diminutive size luckily they have no "fur" so they do not need peeling and can be eaten off the vines like any other berry.

The Ridge Berry Farm Kiwis

Internally, these fruits have the identical structure (and prominent little black seeds) of the conventional Kiwi. The taste of these Kiwis is also very similar to their larger counterpart. When picked early they tend to taste more like Pineapple and when just right, they are almost identical to Strawberries.

Until we can positively identify the variety, we have called them Arctic Kiwis; they could also probably be called Hardy Kiwis. In New Zealand, smaller Kiwis such as these have been marketed as Kiwi Berries.

Our first task over the past year has been to identify and re-establish the many rows of Kiwi vines that were planted at one time. Then we decided to weed, trellis and prune the first two rows. We did this last fall, using a horizontal trellising system.

The vines have taken well to our new trellising system

In the process, we've also been learning about fruit production and of course we've picked up a lot on the proper pruning of the vines.

There are two things to note about fruit production on these vines: 1. it occurs on three year old growth and 2. both female and male plants are needed for pollination. Until this Spring, we had no idea which plants were female and which were male. We were not even certain of the difference.

This year, we were finally able to tell the difference by observing the flowers in June. When looking closely at the small blossoms, it becomes evident which one is which. The female flower has a well pronounced pistil (which will eventually form the fruit).

Male Arctic Kiwi flower (the pistil is almost absent)

Female Arctic Kiwi flower (the pistil is very pronounced)

The difficulty with this fruit is in its ripening cycle and shelf life. Like the conventional Kiwi or other larger fruits, these Kiwis will ripen at different times and if picked "green" will have a tart and astringent taste (the kind that makes your throat itch). When picked just right, they are just soft to the touch however they will only last a few days before "shriveling". This is very difficult to manage when handling such a small fruit.

It is now Arctic Kiwi harvesting season. In fact, we are getting late in the season and as the vines turn yellow and begin to lose their leaves, it is much easier to find all of the well-hidden fruits.

Late harvest Kiwis

Aside from gate sales and their use in the restaurant, we've decided to focus our efforts on the processing of the Kiwis. Over the past year, we have been developing preserves but these do not capture the fresh fruit taste. It turns out that cooking Kiwi fruit transforms its taste a bit to resemble fig.

Last year, we discovered that these could be processed into large raisins. So, we decided to continue our harvesting late in the season to process what we call Kiwi Raisins. These are large raisins which taste like a cross between a conventional raisin and a fig.

this year's first batch of Kiwi raisins

These are great to just eat as is, but we're now looking into further processing these raisins into baked goods or other preserved foods.

The freeing up of the rows and the trellising has helped us significantly in both finding and picking the fruit. In fact, we've gathered so much this year, it was time to carry out one of our favourite experiments: wine making. As Chef said, this will either be brilliant or a major mistake.

We pulverized some of our late harvest Kiwis and decided to blend them with honey and water using the wine making technique we've developed over the past year. We'll see how this goes and will be reporting on the final results.

Our first Kiwi wine...time will tell.

In fact, our wine making experiments have gone rather well. With the exception of a couple of accidents, we've actually been enjoying the majority of what we have produced so far. Of course, not everything has gone perfectly well. This week we lost a complete carboy-full of a Niagara Grape wine experiment.  The carboy handle simply slipped from the neck of the container sending the large glass jug - and all its contents - across Chef's kitchen floor!

Although our wine making is proving successful ...accidents do happen.

Elsewhere on the farm, we continue to process Black Walnuts. We have used some much of these in the past year, we decided to almost quadruple what we picked last fall. So we are still shucking the husks of these nuts and this brought us a dilemma....what to do with all these husks.

The Black Walnut contains a herbicide called Juglone (it effectively kills most plants growing under the Black Walnut tree....with the exception of canes like the Raspberry). So the question was: can the husks be used in our compost for organic farming.

Building up our inventory of Black Walnuts

It turns out the answer is Yes. The husks can be used in a compost and within a year will lose their plant killing properties. In fact, they will make the compost alkaline instead of acidic.

Comfortably disposing of our Black Walnut husks in one of our compost piles

With the colder and wetter weather this week, it was also time to return to the "Biodome". With the structure up and some experimental potted plants inside, we decided to begin work on some hydroponic beds.

In order to do this, we had to finalize a configuration. We've decided to keep things as simple as possible, while using as much of the inside surface area as possible.

To accomplish these goals, we will be building two concentric rings of hydroponic beds some 4 feet from the dome walls. The beds will be terraced to use gravity as much as possible when directing water flow from the main holding tank.

We've also decided to use "deck technology" to build our structures and the flooring. This allows the use the sandy floor base for many different purposes as the system evolves. So this week, it was all about laying out the concrete bases for the 4x4 posts that will form the main support structure for the plant beds.

Laying out the support structure for the plant beds

Since the two concentric rings are to be divided into two sections (to accommodate the entrance doorway), we started work on the smaller segment (the North East side). This segment will effectively act as our prototype installation before we move on to the much larger section.

The more we clear land, the more we find surprises (plants, wildlife, old structures, etc.).

I end this week, with a plant that came "out of the blue". We've cleared a large section on both sides of our creek this summer. From nowhere, on the banks of the creek, we found a Sunflower this week. It is hard to believe it has survived and has grown beneath our very noses.

A lone Sunflower growing on one of our newly cleared sites.