The sight is so bizarre that you involuntarily rub your eyes open. Are they real? Indeed! The many green-brown balls not only look like real kiwis, they feel just like them: velvety to hairy. On the south side of the estate of frohstockheim castle, a kiwi tree is now bearing fruit – for the first time in three decades. And how!
Hundreds of kiwis have pushed their way up to the roof of the farmhouse, four meters above the ground. Crafft and iris from crailsheim have their hands full harvesting the vitamin-rich "new zealanders" – in the middle of december, at just a few degrees above zero.
"They taste delicious!"While crafft von crailsheim is at the top of the ladder, practically picking kiwis from the roof, iris von crailsheim is raving about the taste of the healthy fruit, which contains vitamin C and K as well as plenty of potassium and magnesium. In the meantime, ari the dachshund picks up one of the fallen kiwis and eats it with its skin under the kiwi tree. The tree does not have a thick trunk, but several dark ones. It has grown like a shrub climbing up the stone wall of the horse stable. For years it worried its owners, then they left it alone. And now it surprises everyone with its fruity explosion.
"Shortly after our wedding in 1972, i planted the kiwi tree under the balcony on the south side of the castle," says iris von crailsheim. But the plant apparently didn't like it there, it never bled and generally led a rather messed-up life. "After a couple of years, it annoyed me so much that i moved them to a new location."
But even on the protected flank of the estate, it didn't get any bleeding. "I tried everything and kept buying her new styles," remembers nature and animal lover iris von crailsheim. With kiwis, there are purely male and purely female plants. If you want to harvest fruit, you also need a male plant close to the female plant. "But after five new manners did nothing, i simply stopped paying attention to the kiwi."
For about ten years, the phase of ignoring each other lasted. Then, five and a half years ago, the tree finally started to bleed in spring. And two years ago suddenly hung a single kiwi from one of the branches. "I was so pleased that i thanked it with a coarse portion of horse manure."
I wonder if this year's abundant harvest has something to do with this manure? Thomas riehl, fruit-growing expert at the kitzingen office for food, agriculture and forestry, has a different assumption. "For about four years, there has been a minikiwi plantation between groblangheim and rodelsee," the expert reports. "Since mini kiwis can also pollinate the coarse-fruited kiwi, it is quite conceivable that insects carried the pollen from this plant to the kiwi plant in frohstockheim"."Riehl explains that mini kiwis are relatives of the coarse-fruited kiwi, which only have fruits about the size of a gooseberry, but can be eaten with the skin.
For thomas riehl, fruhstockheim's kiwi blessing is "interesting to watch, but not unique this year". Riehl weib, for example, from a kiwi bush in erlabrunn, which also recently hung overflowing with fruit. "The cause of such exceptional harvests is certainly to be seen in this year's weather pattern."In the spring there were no frosts that could have damaged the young shoots. And at bleeding time there were good conditions for pollination and fertilization. "The warm spring and summer weather has provided very good conditions for development, despite the lack of rain," says riehl.
Will the kiwi be seen more and more often in franconia in the future because of climate change?? "Climate change is progressing, but don't make the mistake of thinking that increasing warming has fundamentally improved conditions for growing such fruit," riehl notes. "In my opinion it is rather the other way around. Due to the continental climate in france, we have to expect night frosts until the middle of may."Due to the often already very warm daytime temperatures in march and april, however, the plants blossom earlier and earlier, and the danger of damage from spring frosts tends to increase even more.
Such forecasts leave iris and crafft von crailsheim cold at the moment. They are always busy thinking up new ways to use their "christmas balls". Compote and jam, juice and even schnapps are talked about. Well then: cheers!
Information about kiwi cultivation
Origin: the kiwi plant originates from southern china. From there it made its way to new zealand, where it became a national symbol. The kiwi is cultivated commercially only in climatically favorable countries. The main cultivators in europe are italy, france and greece.
Kiwifruit in france: the lack of winter frost hardiness, the sensitivity of the young shoots to late frost and the very late ripening in october/november make cultivation in germany uneconomical. In wine-growing regions, however, kiwi plants are still relatively common in home gardens and as trellises in protected places, such as on the walls of houses.
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