You can grow kiwi fruit from store-bought kiwi and enjoy the process if you have a little patience.
Growing kiwi from seed is not complicated but it will take between 3 to 5 years before you can take a bite into your home-grown kiwi fruit.
Don’t despair though, there’s plenty to enjoy until your first fruit harvest.
Kiwi’s are beautiful landscape vines!
Before I share instructions on growing kiwi from seed, I want to fawn over the beauty that is the kiwi vine.
Yes, kiwis are vining plants, although some of you may have envisioned a kiwi tree.
From a purely ornamental perspective, kiwi vines (especially the male kiwi) have soft, velvety, large, almost heart-shaped leaves.
The new stem growth can range from dark green to a luscious burgundy red, depending on the variety.
During the spring, both male and female kiwi vines bear prolific, white (sometimes creme-to-pale-yellow) flowers that, when fertilized, become the kiwi fruit.
The male flower is charged with pollinating the female flower and is equipped with pollen-heavy stamens that attract the “birds and the bees!”
The female flower has stamens though they are sterile and cannot pollinate themselves.
Upon close inspection, you can see the ovule and stigma whose “sticky disposition” helps hold the pollen.
Long story short, the kiwi vine makes a gorgeous landscape plant whether or not it ever bears any fruit!
Give the kiwi a strong support system and lots of room to grow as it can grow up to 30 feet long and will become extremely heavy.
I demonstrated how to grow kiwi from seed on the Home & Family show recently.
Here’s a recap of the information I shared along with some photos.
How to Grow Kiwi From Store Bought Fruit Seed
(Actinidia deliciosa)
Where do you get kiwi seeds?
Take a look inside the kiwi fruit.
See all the black seeds?
These are the seeds that you use to grow more kiwi plants.
There are hundreds of them and each of them are a potential new plant.
Buy kiwi fruit labeled “organic” at the store for stronger seed stock.
How many kiwi fruit grows from one plant?
A mature kiwi vine can produce more than 200 pounds of fruit.
One hundred or more pounds are possible from a single cold-hardy variety kiwi plant.
How to harvest and prepare the Kiwi seeds for planting:
1. Remove seeds from Kiwi fruit.
2. Place kiwi seeds and water in small blender to separate gooey membrane from seeds.
3. Wash seeds in sink using colander.
4. Places seeds on damp paper towel and insert into a plastic ziploc.
5. Place in a warm spot.
6. Check daily until you see that the seeds have sprouted. Make sure the paper towel stays moist at all times.
7. Tear paper towel into small pieces and plant a couple of the sprouted seedlings that are stuck to it into a small pot.
STAGE 1 – Several tiny kiwi plants in one pot starting to grow
There are many plants that are growing from the small spouts we planted in the container.
You can see tiny leaves.
Up to this point the plant was drawing from the stored energy in the seed to grow.
At this point I separated the little plants and placed two in each pot.
STAGE 2 – Kiwi plant is separated 2 per pot
At this stage, it will take about 3 weeks for the kiwi plants to grow more leaves and rely on photosynthesis or energy from sun to continue growing.
The plants need plenty of light and consistent moisture.
Shows STAGE 3 – 1 large plant per pot
When the plants start growing more leaves, I move them into individual pots because they will begin to grow fast!
Start fertilizing them with “starter fertilizer” to boost their nutrition.
STAGE 4 – 2 large, mature Kiwi vines – one is male the other is a female plant
When plants have grown this big, it’s a significant time because they will begin to flower and you can see if it is a “male” or “female” plant.
To grow Kiwi fruit, the female plant needs to be pollinated by the male plant.
Nature will take care of this, but you have to make sure you have at least 1 male plant for every 5 female plants for successful pollination.
Only female kiwi plants bear fruit.
The male plant only assists!
How can you tell from the flower which is male and which is female?
Male flowers produce pollen from the many stamens.
Female flowers have a well-developed ovary with long sticky stigmas in the center to hold the pollen.
Fun Facts About Growing Kiwi
“How long do you have to wait for first Kiwi fruits?”
3-4 years
“Can you grow Kiwi in cold areas?”
Yes. Cold hardy varieties can take 10-degree winter.
“What month do you harvest Kiwi fruit?”
September-October
“How big does one vine get?”
30 feet long!
Do you have any questions about growing kiwi?
