Chinese wolfberry

Photo: Sambuca — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The leaf goji: grown across southern China as the vegetable gau gei choi, its young shoots cooked in soups. The berries are edible but smaller and more bitter than L. barbarum's, which is the species the dried-goji trade is built on.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Arching, sprawling shrub 1–2.5 m tall and as much across, spiny; containerable

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Eastern and central China, Korea and Japan, on riverbanks, roadsides and waste ground — a more humid-climate plant than L. barbarum, and the commoner of the two in the eastern provinces.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Fast — vigorous arching growth, and it suckers as it goes

Spacing

150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate or clustered, broader than L. barbarum's — ovate to rhombic 2–6 cm, thin and soft green. This is the goji grown chiefly as a leaf vegetable, gau gei choi, rather than for the berry.

Root system

Shallow to moderately deep, fibrous and strongly suckering; the root bark (di gu pi) is a traditional medicine in its own right. Expect it to spread.

Fruit description

Orange-red ellipsoid berries 0.7–1.5 cm, smaller and noticeably more bitter than L. barbarum's — which is why the commercial dried-berry trade is built on that species and this one is grown for its leaves. Edible, and used the same ways, but the poorer fruit of the two.

Propagation

Cuttings, hardwood or semi-hardwood, root very easily; suckers can simply be lifted. Seed works but is not worth the variability.

Pollination

Self-fertile — a single plant crops.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.