In addition to breeding endangered ponies, riding lessons, and saving almost every stray animal on the island, the Silva Project also runs an organic kiwi farm. Mrs. Steen originally bought land so she could have a new area for the riding center. On the new land she found entire field of abandoned kiwis. Since Mrs. Steen doesn’t like to see anything go to waste, she decided to rehabilitate the kiwi trees, and started a kiwi farm. This past week the kiwis were finally ripe and ready to be harvested. I volunteered to switch jobs for a couple of days and help with the kiwis.

In my new job as a kiwi picker I learned several interesting things:

• Kiwis are only harvested once a year.
• You cannot eat them right off the tree because they have to ripen for two weeks after they have been picked.
• Greek people laugh at you when you try to take a bite out of a whole kiwi without peeling it.
• Kiwi in Greek is Aκτινίδιο (Actinidia), it is from the Greek word aktin which means ray.
• Not all kiwis are alike… some kiwis keep growing… and become, “mutants.”
  (Which of course made me think of X-men and it took everyone a while to figure out why I was laughing and calling the kiwis Wolverine, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler every time I picked a “mutant.”)

The perfect kiwis (large and normal in shape) will be sold to local grocery stores. The other kiwis (some of them are as small as grapes!) will be sold to a yogurt making company called Danone (I believe its the Greek version of Dannon.)



Although I don’t think kiwi picking will be my new career choice, I did enjoy the experience and the time I got to spend at the farm.