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Anyone growing Goji berry (Lycium barbarum)

gardenfreak
15 years ago

Hi:

Trying to find people who actually grow this fruit. Please respond if you do.

Thanks

Comments (39)

  • stacewizer
    15 years ago

    Just planted one this season. It's doing great; reaching out it's vining tendrils. It's still small, but it's alive and well. I planted it where I had my compost last year. So, I hope it will take off.

  • cyclewest
    15 years ago

    Where did you get the seeds and how could I get some? How long until they fruit? 5 years? I was just reading something about them last week. Aren't they supposed to be highly nutritious?

    Okay, no wonder, they are grown locally by Timpanogos Nursery.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Goji Berry at Timp Nursery

  • cyclewest
    15 years ago

    Mine is on the way. Apparently, they send out suckers and can be propagated by cuttings, so I should have some to share in a few years. I saw someone selling the seeds on e-bay and had been looking into them.

  • gardenfreak
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Hi:
    Thanks for all responses. I wanted to plant some for health reasons. I did check the Tim nursery webside, but with postage a bit expensive for me and to start from seeds would take way too long. So I am looking if someone had some cuttings to share so I can try that way. And about ebay, you have to be careful buying seeds from there. Some good, some rip you off.

  • pamero
    15 years ago

    Got about 50 of them here in Nor Cal, in 2 gallon buckets, most are approaching 2 feet tall. This is there first year.

  • migarden
    15 years ago

    I ordered two potted Goji berry plants from Timpanogos Nursery online & planted them last week. Seem to be doing well. They told me I could possibly see an occasional berry this year but not to expect much until next summer.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Timpanogos Nursery

  • psittacine
    15 years ago

    Though little information is available on the Goji, it certainly sounds like an interesting fruit!

    Now I wont sleep well tonight, because I'll be mentally walking through the property, trying to find a place to plant one or two. Thanks! LOL ...No really, I like the challenge of a new kind of fruit. I just don't have any talent in the 'Garden Design' department. sigh

  • BlackberryJohn
    15 years ago

    So far in my experience here in Oklahoma, Gojis are tough little plants. I started some from Ebay seeds last winter, neglected the little seedlings something awful - but three survived. I've since transplanted those to individual pots that are now doing very well on our sunny deck. Since Gojis sound like extremely attractive plants and we've got lots of room on the deck I plan to continue to move them to larger pots. If they become unhappy, I'll move them to the yard.

  • cyclewest
    15 years ago

    I hope they are tough, but mine seems to be losing the fight! It seems like it has really struggled. Not much new growth, the whole thing looks a little weak. Most of the leaf tips look burned. It's been in the ground about two months now. I'm just hoping that it hangs on for the rest of the summer and survives the winter for a better showing next year.

  • foxd
    15 years ago

    Last year I planted 5 plants I started from seed. Two survived the winter but keep getting the leaves eaten off of them by some unknown critter. One plant is large enough that it manages to hang onto some leaves, but the other keeps getting completely stripped.

    A Gojiberry plant I gave a neighbor is also having the leaves eaten off of it.

    Any idea what finds Goji leaves irresistible?

  • j_roc
    15 years ago

    I took the seeds out of some dried berries I bought from the store and placed them into a damp bucket of soil. Later, when many had germinated, I planted them into starter pots, then moved them outside where many died due to the dramatic change to dry summer heat and too much direct sun. They do best in alkaline soil and are prone to pH nutrient lock. Early on this caused leaf necrosis and weak growth.

    Well the ones that were left were all gathered into a 1 quart pot, and they've started to take off. It's the beginning of fall and a couple are almost a foot high, with long droopy stalks, and a few side branching. I'm keeping it in a well lighted window. Maybe I'll buy a lightbulb to shine on it if it needs more light, who knows. They'll be repotted into a much bigger container in a few weeks. To answer the original question, hopefully I'll be fruiting these by next summer!

  • generator_00
    15 years ago

    This plant is also known as matrimony vine and locally here in Wyoming it is called t-vine. It is a terrible plant that was introduced years ago by the underground coal miners here and was used as a vine to fence in sheep. It grows into a big thorny plant that even the coyotes don't like to go through. It is invasive and still growing out in deserted mining communities years after being abandoned. It loves to find its way through any cracks in foundations, driveways, or anywhere else it can go. In order to kill it you have to get high strength poison from the county agent and apply it repeatedly. Then you better look under every rock around in order to find it all. So my advice is if its not dead now kill it before it takes off.

  • Nevermore44 - 6a
    15 years ago

    I think their is quite a difference between the wolfberry found in the states vs the tibetan version that you see being sold for berries and juice.

  • generator_00
    15 years ago

    Hello nevermore44, I have a inquisitive and open mind, what do you think is different about the states and tibetian version of wolfberry?

  • generator_00
    15 years ago

    I believe there are different cultivars and different areas of the world where matrimony vine grows but I believe they are all the same plant. A thorny root heavy hedging vine with purple flowers (that the hummingbirds love) and produces edible red berries. I suspect the Chinese brought this plant to this area years ago when they worked in the coal mines.
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  • will2358
    14 years ago

    I have eaten the Goji and the wolfberry. They are very similiar, but the goji was sweeter to me than the wolfberry.

  • kelleyrn
    13 years ago

    Anyone growing this in northern Illinois?? I want to try it

  • bpgreen
    13 years ago

    "Anyone growing this in northern Illinois?? I want to try it"

    This is the Utah forum, so it probably doesn't get much traffic from people in Northern IL. Heck, it doesn't get much traffic from people in Utah.

  • babdav
    12 years ago

    where can we get this goji lately? are peoples plants surviving?

  • avemaria_one_net
    12 years ago

    Posted by Gerry in Ohio (avemaria@one.net) on Sun, Apr 24, 11 at 20:58

    Wow, after reading about the hardiness and growth of L.barbarum, I am wondering if this baby would be too invasive, especially if released into the wild as in Utah. Would it force out local vegetation? Sounds like it needs a lot of room to grow. Having another hard-to-control plant in my garden sounds a bit overwhelming to me, despite the value of the fruit. Now what am I going to do with the plants I just bought b/f understanding all that I now know?

  • cjohns8
    12 years ago

    Gerry- you should try it anyway. maybe keep it in a pot. at least give it a chance. :) good luck.

  • mesu
    12 years ago

    well, I had some seeds and just got them coming up, we'll see how they do, since I have a hunch that they may not be hardy around here

  • kal2002
    12 years ago

    Does anyone know where to buy the sweeter Goji instead of the less sweet Wolfberry? I also read online that there is a difference in taste between the two.

    Posted by will2358 z7/Atlanta (My Page) on Tue, May 26, 09 at 19:21

    I have eaten the Goji and the wolfberry. They are very similiar, but the goji was sweeter to me than the wolfberry.

  • brotherjake
    12 years ago

    Goji's are offered at several online nurseries. I know for sure that Raintree and One Green World have them. Timpanogos Nursery had them, but I can't seem to find them on the web anymore. I hate paying shipping costs from online nurseries. Such is life.

  • tdbrueggen_gmail_com
    12 years ago

    My goji has been growing slowly in my plant room since April. I put a light over it and it seemed to help but still slow. The vines were standing up over 6 inches tall and looking good. All of a sudden the leaf tips turned brown and the plants laid down. I've seen other plants get the brown tips from getting sun burned but these plants get no direct sunlight. Max temp in the plant room was maybe 105 degrees a few weeks ago.
    All I can think is that we had a cool snap, where nighttime temps got down to 60 F for a few nights. Could this have shocked the plants if they were used to night temps of only 75 or more?
    They don't look to be dying just yet, but I was concerned that they had laid down like that. Even still their stems seem really thin and seem to barely support the plant as is. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  • thomashton
    12 years ago

    Wish I read this forum earlier. I live in Cache County and my neighbor down the road has a goji nursery. He has quite the operation. All gojis he raises come from old stock Chinese railworkers ate, planted, dropped, etc throughout Rich, Cache, and Box Elder Counties. He ships thousands of them to the large distributers every year. If you buy from Gurney's, you buy from my neighbor. You can put in just about any catalogue retailer in there you choose.

    In any case, look him up online. He has a great website with tons of info. He is a retired USU professor so has taken this on in his retirement, written grants, gotten nutritional and genetic testing done etc. He even has a Goji berry cookbook you can buy. One last thing, he often lists on KSL classifieds. If you search for Goji or wolf berries and find Don or Donald in Logan, that's your man.

    I've included his website.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Phoenix Tears Nursery

  • jimigunne98
    11 years ago

    I purchased several Goji plants from botany_shop on ebay about 1 1/2 yrs ago. I have abt 50 or so total, three (the mother plants) are good sized bushes now. They are blooming, but I am not getting any fruit. Some sources on the internet say that Goji is self-pollinating, while other sources say you must have a male pollinator. From what I am seeing the latter is probably right. I also bought a few male pollinators from botany_bay (they have narrower leaves), but all but one have slowly died.
    The females are incredibly hardy and easy to propagate....but I can't seem to grow the male pollinators. I am definitely not under-watering....could they be more susceptible to over-watering? Or have special requirement making them less hardy than the females?

  • thomashton
    11 years ago

    You very well could be overwatering. Don is adament about not babying these plants. His stock comes from the driest, most alkaline soil around. He doesn't fertilize or even really water them and they grow like weeds.

    My sister-in-law is known for over-fertilizing everything with horse manure. I told her to not use even a cup of the stuff. It's just not needed. You may be getting vegetative growth but not fruit set from babying it.

  • marytrapasso
    10 years ago

    You can get good results on own health with a lot of natural things such as goji berries. I do the shopping here, these are of excellent quality bacche di goji

  • warren56
    10 years ago

    I live in West Tn. Two years ago, at a Chinese restaurant where I live, the Chinese lady who owned the place was sitting at a table next to mine, picking leaves off a pile of switches and putting them into a pot to cook. After watching her for a few minutes and wondering what plant the switches were cut from, I noticed the tiny thin thorns adorning the stems as they were being exposed in the picking. Wow! I asked the lady "Is that Goji?" Her face lit up and she asked, "You know Goji?" I told her that I'd been resurrecting seeds from dried berries for about 3 years, but the resulting seedlings consistentky only grew about three inches and died. She took a bunch of the now bare stems and rolled them up in newspaper, handed them to me and told me to put them in water to root OR stick them into damp ground where I wanted them to grow. I took them home and put all of them into planters on my porch. They all immediately started sprouting new leaves. Last year, several put out new plants from the roots a few inches away from the parent plant. Some of them flushed with blooms in late October, just before frost got them. An ice storm this Winter broke off a few twigs, and when I was cleaning up around them a couple of weeks ago, the severed twigs lying under the leaf cover on the soil were putting out roots and tiny new leaves, so they got stuck into a planter of their own. The parent cuttings have grown to almost 6 feet. I'm hoping they will bloom sooner this year. The soil is probably a bit too acidic. Does anyone know the best way to adjust the ph for gojis, as well as how (or whether) to prune them?

  • blakrab Centex
    9 years ago

    orientalberry - So, do you sell your cultivar?

    And, do Goji berries have thorns, or not? Do they grow into small trees or viny shrubs? Can someone post some pictures of actual mature plants?

    And how invasive are they?

    Here is a link that might be useful: Zhongning cultivar?

  • sf_mia
    9 years ago

    I just bought a Goji this year from Valley Nursery near Hill AFB/Uintah area. It was 5 bucks for the plant. Has lots of leaves and flowers. Hoping it fairs well here. I also have one in San Diego, CA that I left with my Grandmother. She has gotten a few berries off of it but it doesn't seem happy. That one is about 4 or 5 years old and doesn't have a lot of leaves. My hubby and I don't know too much about them so its mostly trial and error for us. I am interested to know if anyone else is growing Goji too. We are located on Hill AFB.

  • snerrskin
    9 years ago

    I'm in South Jordan. I ordered a Goji berry from Stark Bros website this past May. As of today I have had about 50 little berries off this plant. It has done beautifully.

  • arctictropical
    9 years ago

    I live in the bottom of Cache Valley, southwest of Logan. I have a neighbor who sells the plants commercially. They grow like weeds and thrive in any soil or climate. Very drought tolerant as well. I planted some starts in August a couple of years ago. It looked like they died in the heat, but soon after, the sent up new shoots and grew like they could care less about the heat. Be careful. Just like black berries, they will overtake your entire garden if you don't control them.

  • plant4life
    9 years ago

    Is this a goji berry plant? I've posted this question in another thread, but this thread seems more appropriate, thanks.

  • arctictropical
    9 years ago

    plant4life..... this does not look like a goji berry. Goji berry leaves are very thin and narrow. I can post a pic if it helps.

  • sf_mia
    8 years ago

    Update on my Goji plant. It got big, probably 4 ft tall by the fall, it started out in a 3" pot. It gave so many berries but for some reason they tasted bitter to me. My husband enjoyed eating them and they were slightly bitter to him. Strange... In the winter it lasted well in its planter away from the snow but still living outside in the cold temps. When it got warmer I forgot to water it so it now looks like I've killed it. We went to J&J Nursey in Layton this last week and bought a 3" pot of Goji for $4 (i think) to replace our dead plant. Overall it was a really easy plant to grow and gave us a lot of berries, I just wish it didn't taste bitter to me. So we will grow it again this year.

  • fruitloopy_fon
    7 years ago

    My neighbor planted these on the fence line. They are all over my yard, we are talking 15 to 20 feet away from the fence line/main plant. How do I kill them?? I have sprayed them many times with killzall. They are killing all my plants/grass. Thanks

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