After 3 years of wait 1 of my 6 goji berry plants finally produced 4 flowers. I have the plants in containers, they're looking very poor - sparse, yellowing, drooping leaves. I potted them in garden soil which has compacted. Could someone who grows gojis please recommend a good potting mix and fertiliser? I'd like more than 4 berries next year if possible

I also read that the goji leaves make a nice tea, but it depends on which type of goji plant and corresponding leaf shape you have. The round leaves are suitable for tea but the long thin leaves are not. Is this true?

Well-you didn´t mention if it is a seedgrown plant or a plant you had from a garden center.
My Gojiberries (L.chinense ) are sown from seed and they took 3 years to flower. On the other hand I had two different clones of L.barbarum from a garden center as mature plants and they have plenty of fruits, but the taste is a bit bitter so I hope the taste of L.chinense is better.
This rainy season hasn´t been good to them ( L.chinense ) and I only had a few although there were a lot of flowers.
Hope for a better season next year.
The plants are 1.5-2.0 m high.
They had down to -22 C last year and were totally unharmed.
A bit of advice: Snails and slugs LOVE the leaves.

John
Denmark

Hi John, thanks very much for sharing your experience. I bought my plants from ebay as seedlings 15cm tall. I'm not sure which type of goji they are. They have the long thin pointy leaves. There have been a few more flowers since my last post, maybe 10 to 15 in total. I'm not sure if the berries will ripen before winter though, probably not.

Maybe a seed grown Goji would need to reach a certain amount of maturity before it will flower, kind of like a citrus?

My plant was a rooted cutting from an existing plant, rather than grown from seed. I planted a small one gallon plant last Spring and I noticed it had a flower on it a few days ago.

Hi Cristofre, thanks for sharing your experience. Congrats on your cutting starting to flower so early! I think I read that seedlings flower in 2 to 3 years, so I'm happy 1 of mine is on schedule at least. I'll attempt to root some cuttings from the flowering plant next spring. Also, to improve the chances of a bigger crop next year I'll either plant it in ground in a good location, or transplant it to a bigger pot with a better draining soil mix.

In reference to your comment about yellowing leaves, mine was actually doing the same thing.
I planted my plant in an area of the yard with hard compacted clay soil. It didn't grow at all most of the summer and never put on any leaves.

A month or so ago I was repotting some plants and I threw the old potting soil around my goji and within a few weeks it looked better than it had all summer.
I looked at it yesterday and it is covered with green leaves and small new branches. Maybe even another flower.
I wish I had done that earlier in the year being that Fall is here.

Thanks again, I was thinking it sounds like not only a compacted soil problem but a lack of fertilization too. Your experience seems to confirm this. I'll definitely add some slow release fertilizer when I repot them.