…..I have a problem. You see, my hairy balls are too small. I just don’t know what’s wrong with them. They’re small and hard and contain only the smallest quantity of seed. Please help.

Desperate of Cornwall.

This is the second time in a week I’ve been complaining about the size of my produce. This time, it’s the Kiwi fruit that I have photographed in bud, then later in the year in flower and now today in fruit but not fully formed fruit.

I’m not sure what the problem is – I am sure that Kiwis need a male plant to fertilize and what I’m not sure about is whether this plant has been fertilized by a male plant that is not on our premises and the fruit has failed to grow for a different reason or whether the females produce fruit that don’t ripen when they have no male about.

The vine has been ‘going like a train’ – it truly has been growing at a phenomenal rate of knots this year – it’s like a triffid! But, we are at high altitude in a very exposed place….though they come from New Zealand which, I understand, has a temperate climate much like ours and I’m sure that much of NZ is higher altitude than this.

There a many dozens of fruits on the vine but they are all around half the size you’d expect for a ripe kiwi and are all very hard. Could it be that I need a more sheltered spot so the frost that’s taken the leaves last night can’t get to it? Could it be that they will simply never grow to fruition in this climate? I know we ship them from the other side of the world to eat, but we also ship celery from Israel (and other places) during the British celery season, asparagus from Peru in the British asparagus season, beans from Kenya in the British bean season and apples from new Zealand in the British apple season….all of which is done without the bat of an eyelid so it may be that we could ‘grow our own’ perfectly successfully here.

There is no male plant on our land, of that I’m sure but could there be one close enough by to be fertilizing the fruit and allowing it to get to this size?

Therein lies the dilemma. There are no ‘experts’ in Kiwi growing in the UK as far as I’m aware. My vegetable gardening books barely give them a mention and so I’m on my own on this one.

What do I do? Do I buy a male plant (I have found a couple of suppliers in the UK) or do I just hack it down on the basis that it’s never going to ‘come good’? I just can’t decide.

I’ve said before that seeing it in fruit last autumn when we viewed the house was a key motivator to buy for me so perhaps I should hack it down out of sheer spite at playing such a key role in lumbering us with this rat-infested rat’s nest of a house. Or should I nurture it whether or not it fruits because it’s delivered us to a wonderful, moorland home which will be perfect once the builders have all gone?

Dear Marjorie, what should I do?

Last year, wine glasses and dishwashers were the subject of my rant!