Forest Farm sells Lycium chinense. Theatrum Botanicum sells Lycium barbarum. One Green World sells the latter as Matrimony vine. A Google search under Goji or Matrimony Vine yields many seed sources. As far as I can tell, health food stores sell both species as oriental, chinese, tibetan, and japanese Wolfberries.
Will they grow in my zone? z9 CA -- West Sonoma county? Or is it too mild winter here?
I really want to plant some and want to find out more information. I've eaten the berries from stores and I think they are superb tasting (wow!) and nutritional they're a wonder food.
The wolfberry, though a member of the Solanaceae, is no more poisonous than its relatives in that family, the potato and tomato. Contrary to an earlier posting it is listed in hits of a Google search as both edible and medicinal. Example: http://montana.plant-life.org/species/lyci_barba.htm
A Chinese dish, matrimony vine broth, uses both the leaves and shoots and the berries of L. barbarum as ingredients. A Google search on [ wolfberry wine investment walmart ] produces 117 hits relative to such an investment in wolfberry wine production in China.
Lycium barbarum grows wild through much of the world, including North America, and in Rush County Kansas - my residence. It is widely regarded as an escaped cultivar, and another name, from when it was a popular residential decorative vine, is "Matrimony Vine".
From "The Free Dictionary" it has these synonyms: matrimony vine - any of various shrubs or vines of the genus Lycium with showy flowers and bright berries. AKA - boxthorn, common matrimony vine, Duke of Argyll's tea tree, Lycium barbarum, Lycium halimifolium - deciduous erect or spreading shrub with spiny branches and violet-purple flowers followed by orange-red berries; southeastern Europe to China
Unless you want to support Tibet, which claims an old and high quality variety of Lycium, sold as Goji berry, you are just as well off consuming your own home and organically cultivated L. barbarum.
I've cultivated Lycium barbarum for about 10 years. Good little berries that dry very well, though sometimes with a lot of seeds. As for the fruit being poisonous, that's a wives tale, like poisonous pyracantha berries or juniper berries. I think that nasty rumours like that are started by mothers who want to keep their children from eating somewhat less than savoury items.
We've expanded our crop over the years and our latest plants were grown from seed purchased from White River Source (www.whiteriversource.com) We grow them on a Kniffin system trellis and they have produced very well. Lycium is now being recommended by Purdue University as an alternative midwest crop. And, in my humble opinion, you are very much better off growing your own ANYTHING, if you can.
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