I needed some more vining plants to fill the beds with wire attached for them to climb. One I have been thinking about adding for awhile is Hardy Kiwi Vine. By adding some perennial plants to the garden hopefully next year they will come up and be quite happy. Perennial plants come back next year vs annual plants that die off when their season is done. But these vines should be quite hardy, down to -20F (-28C). So these are some very special Kiwi plants, being able to handle such cold winters.
Bought four plants, they are self fertile so do not need a male plant unlike other kiwi vines.
I made a space for these four plants, spacing them out equally in this long bed. I have some annual pepper plants growing right now, but they will die off during winter. While the hardy kiwi will go into a state of dormancy.
With the holes dug its time to add some garden soil. I used some native dirt to level and then dug holes to add the good soil for the plants.
It is looking a bit hairy over in the next bed, there is a wasp nest inside. So I decided to just let it grow wild. I will cut it all back during the winter. Its not really worth the trouble to get rid of the nest and use chemicals that may get into my edible plants.
Hah we can see the difference between the Horse gram vine bed and the pepper bed. Both have trellis's for plants to grow on. I started some naturism vines but they did not take, hopefully the kiwi vines will fill their spot well. Then I can have massive vines on both sides, will look quite nice I think.
I ordered these plants online, bought five but only four survived. But honestly four spaced out perfectly so I am okay with one loss.
The garden soil I got is a new brand this year, I am moving away from Miracle Grow products and trying Kellogs soil now.
You are suppose to mix the garden soil 50/50 but I forgot and just realized that writing this post.. lol oops. Hopefully it wont be too much for them.
Once planted I put back the top soil around them to help lock in the good stuff. The clay is a good material to build up the beds, but using it right where the plants grow tends to be a little hard for the roots to push through. So that is why I use garden soil around the plant and then add clay on top.
Finally giving them a good watering, they do not need much now. Maybe once a week if the rains do not water for me. Probably not much is going to happen with these until next year or the following year. Now they just need to get used to their new environment and prepare for the upcoming winter. Once that passes hopefully they all survived and I will see them come up next spring. I should probably mark them so I do not lose track of their little stems the first year, as they will probably drop their leaves in the next few months as they go into dormancy. But besides that I just leave them be, and due to their nature they will come back every year. And if I take good care of them stronger each year until they produce tasty little kiwi fruits.
