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Goji Berries

Goji Berry Experience in Bishop

Alison Collin, Inyo-Mono Master Gardener Volunteer

Lycium_chinense. Photo by siamak_sabet

Lycium barbarum or Lycium chinense.

When these first hit the headlines I investigated them and discovered that they are drought tolerant, don’t mind alkaline soils are that they are hardy, so they sounded ideally suited to the Owens Valley! 

My purchased plant of a Chinese Goji became established very quickly and grew very well, rapidly becoming a tangled mass of lax stems.  Somehow the catalogs had omitted to point out that it was thorny! 

After a couple of years it began to bear fruit.  The berries were really quite small, and I found them not to be particularly appetizing, leaving a very unpleasant aftertaste. 

At that point vigorous suckers began to appear well away from the base of the plant, and since my space is very limited I decided that it was time to wield an axe. Your experience may be different than mine.

Wikipedia has a page about the fruit you may want to read.