Possibly my sudden interest in vegan food inspired me to dedicate this blog to our fruit. Our house has arches that are covered in Kiwi plants. A beautiful sight in spring, summer and fall and a delicious treat during wintertime.
I won’t lie: they are a lot of work, but they really turned out to be worth it! I had no idea that you need female plants (flowers bloom in springtime and eventually turn into fruit) and male plants (flowers bloom in spring time and then alot of sweeping has to be done).
After blooming of the flowers they grow stunning leaves which gives our house a very nice touch.
In fall they lose their leaves (again lots of sweeping) but now comes the reward: harvesting and eating! Buffas helped us harvest the kiwi and I assume that we had about 2000 or more. Every single kiwi was put into cartons neatly next to each other giving them ample possibility to ripen the correct way. I would have just put them all together but that would have turned out into one giant kiwi smoothie.
Finally in December we could eat them and believe me – the best I have ever had and I have always been a big kiwi fan! Soon enough we had the perfect gift for our friends – instead of a bottle of wine – we brought 100 kiwis!
Everyone was enthusiastic about them! Claudia made smoothies, Esther put them into her special “Air Dryer” and enjoys them as a healthy snack and Karen made chutney! The are much smaller than from the store but much more intense in flavour and a nice (possible) side effect? Influenza did not visit us this year!
The last kiwi for now…
I now look at my fruit trees with much more understanding and respect. Basically I can tell you a similar story about our figs. I had more figs last year than I had in my whole life altogether. The fig trees bear fruit twice a year. First big round figs and a few weeks later smaller oval ones. Both can be harvested in July/August but we have far more figs than we can handle…nevertheless…with some blue cheese and a bit of runny honey…a real treat!
We also have apricots, plumbs, cherries, peaches, apples, hazelnuts and olives but unfortunately they did not carry fruit last year due to a sudden frost period in April. We left the hazelnuts for the squirrels, made some jam from the cherries that survived and also harvested some olives, which we will be able to taste in March. Can’t wait to see what this year will bring.