Replanting Kiwi Seeds

As you might recall, our kiwi plants died in the great heat die off. Well today I replanted them, just in a different matter.

Last time we scattered a bunch of kiwi seeds over seed starter and they virtually all grew. This time we are using the 12 compartment seed tray again but planting 2 seeds per compartment. The plants will be thinned later on.

Last time it only took 2 weeks for the seeds to grow. Let's see how things go this time.

Extracting Kiwi Seeds

This is the method we used to get our kiwi seeds

You Will Need

• Sharp Knife
• Butter Knife
• Bowl of water
• Coffee Filter
• Sieve
• Bowl

Instructions

1. Cut the kiwi into quarters
   
   
   
   
   
2. Remove the middle white line
   
   
   
   
   
3. Gently scrap the seeds off with a butter knife
   
   
   
   
   
4. Rinse the seed covered knife in the bowl of water
   
   
   
   
   
5. Let most of the seeds settle to the bottom
   
   
   
   
   
6. Put a coffee filter in a sieve and the sieve in a bowl. Gently pour the water/seed mixture into the coffee filter. The coffee filter will drain the water but keep the seeds.
   
   
   
   
   
7. After the water drains leave it to dry overnight.
   
   
   
   
   
8. You should be able to easily scratch the seeds off of the coffee filter once it is dry. Now they are ready for use.
   

Kiwis and Apples

Kiwis
Last week I was quite surprised on how many of the kiwis have sprouted. Well this week, most of the seeds had their first leaves.




Germinated kiwi seeds

They will continue to grow inside the greenhouse seed tray until the roots get too crowded or the plants get too big.

Apples (Fuji)
The apple seed that already sprouted is starting to grow it's third and forth leaves. In another compartment another seed has sprouted and is in the beginning stages of growing more leaves. Apparently it is the compartment where we placed 2 seeds. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the other seed is also growing.


Apple seeds growing


The next apple seeds we will be planting are Gala apples. This time they will not be place fridge. They will be placed between wet paper towels in a plastic bag but at room temperature.

Growing kiwis from seed

I decided to grow some kiwis. According to my online research, kiwis grow on vines, kind of like grapes, and there are male and female kiwis. You need at least one male vine to fertilize all the female vines.

Online I found 2 techniques on growing kiwis from seed. (In a later blog I will show how to get seeds from kiwis) One method is to place the seeds in the fridge for 4 months to stratify them, then plant them in some peat moss. The other method is the same except the seeds don't need to be placed in the fridge. Two weeks ago my boyfriend, Trevor, and I decided to try both methods. We got 2 kiwis. The seeds from one kiwi went into the fridge while the others were planted in a miniature seed tray greenhouse. We made sure the greenhouse soil was always moist and we sprayed it once a week with fungicide. (The greenhouse is very warm and moist, perfect conditions for fungus to grow)

Today I decided to give the kiwis their weekly fungicide spray and was amazed at how many kiwi seeds had already germinated. None of them have leaves yet, all still have their seeds attached but hopefully by this time next week there will be a tray full of kiwi sprouts.