Goji

[alanc]

Has anyone grown Goji? It seems that it may not do well outside of dry areas. Insects seem to like the young plants also. This is my third year trying to grow them, this time with more success.

[plantsnobin]

Welcome to Homegrown. We have an old thread here somewhere about this, probably lond buried. It seems that the consensus is that it will grow well for many climates, but you may never see fruit unless you have a really long growing season. I have it, and it does produce fruit for me in my southern IN location. I haven't got to taste them yet though, my fault, I let the chickens out when the berries were turning red. It blooms very late, and in a mild winter I have had it blooming into late Nov, early Dec. They haven't started blooming here yet.

[hiven]

Welcome to HG Alan. Thank you for bringing this up, I am growing it for the first time this year. Mine grow pretty well and so far got no insect yet except the birds, they have been eating the young leaves up (tasty leaves ??). They are starting to reproduce new shoots and leaves again.

I hope my climate is long enough for them to produce flowers and set some fruits, thanks for sharing this info, Karen.

[plantsnobin]

I should also add that mine is spreading, not horribly so, but it does send out a few suckers, that can be good or bad I guess. But you will want to allow it plenty of space, as it does develop a few thorns, not too prickly, but they are there.

[castanea]

Jun 12, 2009 17:11:12 GMT -5 hiven said:

Welcome to HG Alan. Thank you for bringing this up, I am growing it for the first time this year. Mine grow pretty well and so far got no insect yet except the birds, they have been eating the young leaves up (tasty leaves ??). They are starting to reproduce new shoots and leaves again.

I hope my climate is long enough for them to produce flowers and set some fruits, thanks for sharing this info, Karen.

The ones I have grown do not require a long growing season. There's a nursery in Utah that sells them and they appear to be in zone 6. In much of their native range in Asia they grow in zones 6 and 7. Those clearly do not require a long growing season. Mine fruit early in the year along with my guomi.

[PatrickW]

I'm growing them for the first time this year too. I'm having problems with birds too, but not insects. The remaining plants the birds were kind enough to leave behind for me are growing very slowly. I don't think our season will be a problem for berries, but also don't expect anything the first year. They grow wild here, so it should be a good climate.

[hiven]

Good to know that you are growing them too Patrick, hope we can exchange notes. I will have to place all goji plants/seedlings in a protected area, the birds has plucked out all leaves and even try to eat of the young shoots...grrrr!
Did birds attact your goji seedling/plants (severely) too ?

I read it somewhere that they are naturalized in certain area in NL. I have never seen them in the wild ,but the good thing is this mean they will grow just fine and that is really a welcome news .

[PatrickW]

hiven: I planted six plants, and birds have eaten three of them. I don't honestly seem to have the problem with birds eating the young leaves, I just go over to that bed from time to time and discover another plant is gone. I didn't know what was happening at first. I think the remaining plants are big enough now they should survive any more bird attacks. I'll probably have to cover the plants with a net when they start fruiting.

I've all but given up trying to grow any red colored fruits in my garden, because the birds just get to them before I can. It's one of the reasons I love growing white strawberries!

[hiven]

I got same problem here ,Patrick! The black bird (Merel) is one of the worse one, it has been eating my red gooseberries yet the fruit is not ripe yet (just turning red). It actually ignore the green gooseberries! Perhaps they see red better then white, yellow or green (yellowish with the light green tone).
I only managed to harvest my strawberry once of the grand total of 2 intact red Ostara stawberries , don't know should I cry or laugh . Luckily I only planted 6 plant as an trial just to see how it grow and how we like the taste.

[plantsnobin]

Mine is still not blooming yet, which is what I meant by they need a long growing season. I am in zone 6, they grow fine, but they bloom so late they don't have much time to ripen before cold weather.

[alanc]

Last year I transplanted several in the ground, but they disappeared, probably insects. It was also a very wet year. They did not do well growing in a flat either.

Wikipedia describes them as growing in Ningxia in China.

Climate: climate with summer temperature rising to as high as 39 degrees Centigrade and winter temperature plummeting to as low as 30 degrees below zero. The day\night temperature variation in summer is 17 degrees news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-04/03/content_815412.htm

Winters there are cold, summers are short and hot, and very arid there. There was a mention of disease susceptibility also.

I was hoping to grow them in zone 5a. Southern Vt.

This is a great board, and thanks for the welcome. I found it by googling my name, Alan Bishop, and finding another Alan Bishop.

[plantsnobin]

It is interesting about the bird trouble, I haven't had anything try to eat my plants. Mine are also looking very good even with all the rain we have had this year, while the crabapple tree planted next to it is having some foliar issues. Cool about the name too.

[lieven]

I got my plants from a local nursery; they grow well, but they get some sort of mildew, too. The first fruits appeared mid October, which I find pretty late. Taste: not very WOW; I prefer the dry goji berries I bought.
A visitor told me I didn't have the real goji, and he would bring me a shoot of the real stuff; that was last summer, and I haven't heard of him since.