For a decade, our hardy kiwi vines have been disease free. But as soon as they set fruit this year, leaves started to turn brown on the bearing plant. The disease looks strikingly like fire blight, so that's my working hypothesis even though the internet doesn't report that particular bacterial disease affects the plant species.

With leaves no longer pumping sugars into the fruits, we decided to bring some inside as a test harvest. The seeds are black, which suggests the fruits are mature enough to ripen off the vine. I'll keep you posted once we finally get to taste this fruit that's been ten years in coming!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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