North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Bove, Roger Even (Retired)" <RBove@wcupa.edu>]

I just posted the material below to Bananas.org and thought that I ought to 
copy this to Nafex. About five years ago I was contacted by a Connecticut 
nurseryman and Nafex member to whom I gave cuttings from my vines. Since my 
computer was stolen shortly thereafter I lost all material on who he was. I 
would like to know how he did.

It's nice to hear from a fellow Pennsylvanian in the last post. I have a few 
hardy kiwis myself and got a small amount of delicious fruit from them. I 
also have had 'tender' kiwis for almost 20 years planted against the south 
side of my house. The first were taken from seeds from California (Hayward) 
kiwis from the supermarket. They grew well and survived winters without 
trouble, but produced no fruit.
I finally bought some grafted female vines from Edible Landscaping and a 
supplier in Washington state. They took over the south side of my ranch-style 
home and began to assault the roof. In the best years I had to give away 
fruit. Unfortunately, when I retired we upsized our house for the 4th time by 
putting on a second story. Since the entire south wall had to be 
reconstructed, the kiwis had to be cut to a foot tall. My wife didn't want 
kiwis on the siding any more so I had an arbor built which extends about five 
feet from the house. The best part of this was that a series of hardy fig 
bushes that had been planted about the same time as the kiwis rediscovered 
the sun and produced brilliantly this fall without having been properly 
protected for the winter. However. the kiwis, which covered the back and top 
of the arbor and started to assault my unusually high second floor have only 
produce a very small amount of fruit, though they and some more that I added 
to the 'jungle' behind my back yard were covered with blossoms this spring. 
My point is that kiwis will survive and fruit 15 miles north of the 
Mason-Dixon line, but I should warn that the season is not long enough to 
ripen them and they need a warm place to ripen. I ought to add that none of 
my bananas have ever fruited in my greenhouse, though my outdoor Basjoos are 
high and hardy without much care.


Roger Even Bove, PhD
Department of Economics & Finance (retired)
West Chester University
West Chester PA 19383-2220
rbove@wcupa.edu<https://webmail.wcupa.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=a669f7b2a95e4331af8839702827f294&URL=mailto%3arbove%40wcupa.edu>
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