ZESPRI® GREEN ORGANIC Kiwifruit
When Leo Whittle was a little boy, he grew the family vegetables and, he says, he had a pretty good vegetable garden. The secret was compost and he is still making and using it today.
He likens compost makers to home brewers. "We get a lot of pleasure out of making our own brew and making a good one. And when I decided to become an organic kiwifruit grower, I had no doubt it was possible. I'm an organic man from way back. You could say that growing this crop has been a confirming experience of all I already knew."
Leo and Diane Whittle grow organic kiwifruit on an orchard at the end of a long driveway that curves into the hills just outside New Zealand's kiwifruit capital, Te Puke, in the well named Bay of Plenty. The fruit hang in clusters from the underside of their leafy canopy in the smudged yellow light of late afternoon. There are also a few remaining birds’ nests of the hundred or more built in the vines at the start of each spring. Diane says one of the pleasures of an organic orchard is all the life inside and around it, especially the birds that come chasing bugs, fluttering often between her face and hands as she works on the vines.
Now it is only days from the autumn harvest and while many people presume the grower's sole focus is the fruit, Leo has also been concentrating lower down.
"I put all my energy into building the bio-life in my soil. Compost is not to feed the vines, it's to feed the microbial activity in the soil. We look after the soil and the fruit looks after itself."
And when the crew come in to pick, the crop will be ready to meet very exacting standards. "It has to be just as perfect as any export fruit," Leo confirms, "and we do that ... no problem."