Two fruity

Call me old-fashioned, but I've never been much of a fan of multi-tasking. My mother instilled in me at a young age that you can't do two things at once, and she was right. Generally one task is enough of a challenge - I noticed just last weekend that making espresso and caramel squares at the same time results in the sugar being left out of one or the other, with stunningly unsatisfactory consequences. This is possibly why someone decided (belatedly) to legislate against driving a car while talking on a cellphone, and I can think of other instances where such laws might not be a bad idea.
But, please, nobody legislate against the multi-tasking that is happening at my front gate. Right on the boundary is a tangelo tree. Growing over one side of it is a banana passionfruit vine. And growing over the other side, and most of the top, is a kiwifruit. (I should confess a moth weed is also in the mix but I plan to deal to that.)
I didn't plant the kiwifruit, but since I live in an orchard area I assume it self-seeded there and found the tangelo an accommodating host. I've nick-named the hybrid plant a duo-tasker. It can do two things at once - produce tangelos and kiwifruit - but I've yet to see all three plants fruit together.
The kiwifruit makes the whole affair look spectacularly ugly. I thought of pulling it out, but it seems slightly sinful to trash a perfectly good food source for the sake of aesthetics.
I'd been waiting for the kiwifruit to ripen, and was moaning recently to an orchardist neighbour that they were still hard as hell. He said they wouldn't ripen on the vine, to pick them and stick them in a bag with an apple for a week, then gorge myself. So every week I pick a bagful of kiwifruit from my duo-tree and feel virtuous and healthy. Interestingly, everything I've read about growing kiwifruit says they ripen on the vine, and are usually ready in May, so I have to accept mine is a total one-off. But who cares - the fruit are fabulous.
Kiwifruit are an exceptionally high source of natural vitamin C so have lots of anti-oxidant properties, and I've heard they're a great anti-ageing remedy. So at the rate I'm eating kiwis I should look about 20 by year's end. The seeds contain omega-3 fatty acids which have to be good for you, and kiwis are a great source of fibre. I've just read a new diet book which extols the virtues of more fibre, so it's kismet that I'm finally eating enough of it.
If you're not lucky enough to have a kiwifruit self-seed on to your boundary, you may have to grow one from scratch. Now's the time to plant, and you'll need to get a male and a female plant, and plant in sun or part shade, in well-draining soil with lots of organic matter. Kiwifruit don't like the wind so choose a sheltered spot. They're hungry and thirsty little beggars so feed nitrogen feeders in the first half of the growing season, and water them through the entire growing season.
Your vines will need something to grow up, but I wouldn't suggest planting them over a pergola or veranda close to the house, unless you like the look of naked, brown, hairy tendrils, which is all they have to offer in winter. Prune them to encourage new shoots for next year and to allow light and air into the vine for pollination.
Harvest when the fruit feel soft and keep them in the fridge. They'll store there for weeks, and ripen within a few days when left out on the bench. What could be more convenient?
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Growing your own?
If you're going to grow kiwifruit, be aware that as well as being New Zealand's most important horticultural crop, it has also become a problem weed and therefore a pest. Silvereye birds feed on the ripe fruit and spread the seed into the bush margins, where the vines grow and smother stands of native bush. I'm assuming this is how I came by mine. Most wild kiwifruit is in the Bay of Plenty, but it has also been found in Canterbury and south Westland - quite distant from the country's kiwifruit growing regions.