Alright this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
I have another exciting episode for you today.
We're here in the desert garden and there's something really exciting going on, I was
over there in the raised bed, other the day checking it out and I saw something that I
never seen or never grew myself before to fruition and literally that's to fruition,
and that's that literally goes to fruition it fruits in my opinion.
So I actually have a really cool fruit that's fruiting out over there so we'll actually,
let's head over to that raised bed and check out what this special fruit is.
Now we're in one of my raised beds here and this is the very raised bed that I planted
mint in ceramic pots so they wouldn't spread out.
That being said, you do need to go through regularly and check for mint that's overgrowing
the side of the pot and then is rooting.
So I actually pulled out a bunch of them.
It's much easier to control this way, but this way is not guaranteed fool-proof unless
you're a fool and you don't cluck out the suckers or the runners that come out.
So anyways, why I was doing that I noticed something really cool happening.
I had literally forgotten about this plant.
I had grown this same plant in California for many years and never had gotten any fruit
off of it, and now here, I just planted and it fruits the first season that I'm growing
it.
Normally they say this plant could take up to three years to fruit and maybe the plant
I got was started from cuttings and maybe was three years old, I have no idea.
But nonetheless, check it out, this guy right here is in the middle.
I kind of planted it between the pots in a small area because this is going to be a perennial
in this climate.
It's hardy to zones like five to nine.
I don't know if you guys can see that on the camera, I'll go ahead and do a close up.
We got these little berries on there and this one is actually called Goji berry, that's
what it was sold to me as.
We have the plant tag right here if you guys want to check it out, it says goji berry on
there.
I don't know if this is a true Goji berry or just a lyceum berry, known as a wolf berry.
Basically the difference between a Goji berry and a wolf berry is that it's like a different
variety, like there's granny smith apples, Fuji apples, they're all apples, but they're
a little bit different.
There's many varieties of the lyceum berries depending on where they're native to.
They're native to China and the Western United States so depending on what variety they are
they're going to do better or worse.
The nutrition may be a little different amongst the berries but they're all in my opinion
very similar.
So let me go ahead and show you guys a close up on these fresh grown Goji berries.
I'm going to go ahead and show you guys the goji berry that I'm growing, but it may be
a wolf berry.
You can see here.
This is the little plant, it's just a small little plant that I bought.
I think it was like five dollars.
Actually, I bought this in Utah when I was up there visiting at a little store.
There are the little berries right there and these guys are actually related to the tomato
plant, they're in the solanaceae family.
Since I've never grown these before I don't know when these are ripe or not, but that
large fruit I might just pluck off because I have ones in different stages of growth,
and I'm going to try really to see how it tastes at this point, although just like any
solanaceae family plant, I would encourage you guys to always pick them as ripe as possible.
In addition besides these ripening berries, I was looking along some of the stems of the
plant and it's actually quite long.
It goes up and up and up.
I'm probably going to have to, maybe stake it up or something.
It's now like probably about two feet high, when I got it was like about 6 inches tall,
so it's really loved the climate here and also really loved my soil.
You can see, there's the leaves there, and if you see where my finger is touching right
there, or my finger is moving, that's just a little small berry forming.
There's a few of them all the way down this single stem here.
So that's pretty amazing.
I'm quite glad this doing quite well.
So let me go ahead and show you that fruit one more time here.
So this fruit here, this is known as an antioxidant fruit, it's probably one of the most nutrient
dense fruits on the whole plant because it does have things like amino acids and a matter
of fact it has 18 amino acids.
It's actually 10% protein for just a little fruit.
Yes, all fruits contain protein, this one happens to be one that contains actually a
good amount of protein.
So it also has five carotenoids, including lutein, lycopene and seitan.
Chinese medicine has been using this guy for 1900 years.
So this is really an ancient food and I have friends that are growing it in Seattle area
and they said it's doing very well.
This is the first time I've had any fruit on mine, literally by just growing it in the
ground doing nothing.
So I would encourage you at this point if you do live in the desert anywhere grow some
wild, native wolf berries from your area, or just get some of these seeds here.
So what I'm going to do next is go ahead and pluck this fruit off you get to see that get
plucked off here and it came off very easy, so it slipped off very easy.
So when it does that means you know it's relatively fairly ripe.
Of course maybe slipped off easier if I wait a little longer but this guy looks pretty
ripe to me.
I've bought these fresh at farmers markets before and they're actually a pretty penny
a small little four ounce container sometimes cost fifteen bucks.
So grow your antioxidant rich goji berries.
Next I'm going to go ahead and try to let you guys know what I think.
It's very squishy and when we pulled it off the stem it's actually like weeping or bleeding
so if you want to keep it preserved bright better cut the stem often not just pull it
like I did.
And let's see here going to go ahead and back that up.
Here it is right here and the seeds are coming out they're nice and small.
Well it tastes kind of like, has a little bitter hint of bitterness, maybe like that
eggplant or no green pepper bitterness, like when green peppers are ripe, if they're ripe
there sweet if they're not they got that funny taste.
It was quite sweet actually very water rich that almost exploded in my mouth.
There's a few seeds on my fingers here.
It probably tasted it somewhere between a raspberry and a cherry and a raisin to me.
So it's kind of sweet, not super sweet but had that kind of like unripe tartness of a
green pepper.
But good nonetheless for my first ever goji berry that I grew myself in good high quality
compost and rock dust and mycorrhiza bacteria in my soil.
So maybe that's why it's producing really early.
Anyways the next thing we're going to do is if you want to grow this plant, it's very
easy.
Seeds are widely available probably at a store near you.
So I'm going to show you guys the easiest way to obtain some seeds and to grow these
from the seeds that you could buy locally.
So let's head inside out of the hot weather.
Check it out.
Now we're inside and we're going to show you guys how you could easily obtain your own
goji berry or wolf berry seeds.
The easiest way to do this is to go to your local health food store.
Many health food stores including Whole Foods may sell goji berries in the bulk section
and that's absolutely the easiest way and cheapest way to source some goji berry or
wolf berry seeds.
Now when you go to the bulk section you know you can do this if you got hutzpah and you
guys know what hutzpah means you could buy like one, one little goji berry and I bet
their scales can't even pick it up and they'll say oh you could get it for free so that I
could actually get a free goji berry.
But nonetheless, I would probably encourage you guys to buy some I do some.
These are some bulk goji berries.
Now they come in all different levels of quality.
I personally like to buy the one when I feel them in the ball bins or in a package they'll
be soft and mushy kind of like a raisin.
When you buy a raisin they're nice and soft and moist you know they're not all rock hard.
Some goji berries that you may find or wolf berries you may find something like Asian
stores are like nice and bright red and really hard.
I prefer the ones that are nice and soft in maybe even turning in color.
I think they may use or preservatives or something or high heat to process them, in which case
this seeds might not quite be as viable.
I want to once again touch on the differences between the wolf berries and goji berries.
The only difference, it's like apples it's like you got Fuji apples, Granny Smith apples,
they're all apples and these are all lyceum berries.
But goji berries one kind, wolf berries one kind and there's different varieties each.
So I don't really care what kind you guys grow.
Get one native your area and then just try to grow it or if you could only get these
seeds, hey just get one of these guys.
I’m going to eat those.
Wow.
After eating the fresh goji berry these one just don't compare.
Definitely good nonetheless, and these guys are great snack much better in my opinion
than something like raisins.
These guys are really high in antioxidants and really healthy for us as well.
Like the fresh one has all the nutrients.
Any case let me go ahead and show you guys how to get to seeds out of one of these little
dry goji berries.
Basically you going to get goji berry and then you're going to soaking it in a bowl
of water.
So I've been soaking this for a few hours, optimally you should do it overnight.
We're going to go ahead now do a close up on the balls you guys can see exactly what
I'm doing to get the seeds out.
Now you can see the seed that's been soaking in the water hopefully overnight and I when
you're going to go in with your fingers, wow, check it out I just squeezed it you see like
that the fruit colors coming out of it.
So you know that's a nice and soft.
You're basically going to take it out and carefully twist it between your fingers.
When you do that it's going to break open and when it breaks open I like to put it underwater
and break it open.
What'll happen is all the seeds will come out.
Now it will discolor your water.
If you want you could actually drink this soak water, it's probably healthy for you
it's got some of the goji berry antioxidants.
And you'll see all here besides the skin here that we'll now actually, I'm actually going
to eat it, you don't need to discard it.
It taste better watered down in the dried ones, but freshest is bestest is what I like
to say.
Now what's going to happen is the seeds are being either float or sink.
Now the thing you want remember is the floaters are the seeds that are not good not viable
so you want to scoop those off and not use them.
The seeds on the bottom you want to go ahead and collect and use it now since they have
been pre-soaking they're all ready to put in some starter mix and start growing them.
That's how easy it is to a collect your goji berry seeds.
Another way you can do this besides this way, you can actually soak your fruit in the water
overnight.
Once it's nice and plump rip it in half carefully and then actually just put half of the fruit
contain the seeds in a little pot with soil and bury it a little bit and then just keep
it moist.
They should germinate and grow.
They like a nice humid and warm condition to grow in for sure.
So I hope you guys enjoyed learning more about the goji plant that's once again fruiting
the first season that I've put it in the ground.
I think that's truly amazing and I'm going to have a least a handful goji berries later
this year.
Because this plant grows so well in Los Vegas I'm probably going to take cuttings from it
and propagate it.
That's how it's normally propagated, it's a little bit quicker than getting seeds out
and growing them.
But if you don't have access to a plant to take cuttings from then your seeds are absolutely
your best bet because once again most health food stores have these.
Another thing I want to talk about that's not relatively known is you can actually sprout
the seeds and then grow a tray of goji berry sprouts and that is a really good longevity
food.
I've had goji berry sprouts before and man they are absolutely insane and crazy.
It takes lots of seeds to grow just a little bit of sprouts.
So I want to encourage you guys to grow your goji berry sprouts and if the plants get larger
then go ahead and plant it out so you can have more of the goji fruit that's really
rich in antioxidants it's probably one of the most nutrient dense fruits on earth.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time and remember keep on growing.