A CITY GIRL: Hardy Kiwi Trellis Build

I'm 87 days into the edible forest garden project. I'm getting rid of the grass in my backyard to create an edible forest garden made of perennial edibles that's as beautiful as it is productive. You can see all of the planning here, and the latest of the edible forest gardening here.

Apparently, everyone received the memo to mow today but me. I spent the afternoon with my Dad building the Hardy Kiwi Trellis that has been on my to-do list since February. If I had all of the parts this would have been completed in no time. You can see where it's located in the garden from the plan here.

It looks like a clothes line, right? From what I researched, these are some serious vines that can produce as much as 100lbs of kiwis per season, so the trellis must be able to handle all of the weight. I used this video to help me with the construction. I purchased (1) male and (1) female vine online from Farmer Seed and Nursery in January.

Please excuse the mess. The garden feels a bit trashy these days. I think adding mulch will really spruce up the place. I'm STILL waiting on mulch. The new scheduled date is next week... Here's the general list of items it took to build the trellis.

*I can't remember what the turn things are called. They are in the same section as the bolts. I added them, so I can tighten the wire.

The 4x4 posts are spaced 15' apart and 24" in the ground. I will plant each vine between the posts so they will be about 16' apart. I had the 2x4 precut into 5' sections at the store. They were then bolted to the post with two bolts, one being an eye bolt. The center post just has holes to feed the wire through. The two posts on each end have (5) eye bolts, corresponding with the number of wire lines.

The video uses wire vises that I did not use. They aren't easy to find and just seemed like an unnecessary expense. I hope I don't regret it. I also didn't anchor the two end posts to the grounds. I will add the anchors closer to when/if it's necessary. I also found the 9 gauge wire is not easy to work with, so I went down to 12.