Goji Berries in my edible garden

Summary of post
How to plant your own goji berries (Lycium barbarum). Germinating and sowing your own Goji Berry plants, for those DIY- type people (like myself!).


Goji Berries: A traditional Asian "medicine"?
Being Malaysian Chinese, I've eaten goji berries since I was a baby. Chinese ladies use the dried red berries in soups and other tasty dishes. I love it as is (tastes like a raisin with lots of little seeds like a blueberry has). I also love the flavour it imparts to some of my favorite Chinese dishes. Never really thought of it as a medicine though, much less a 'sexual tonic revered in Asian herbalism'! Goji berries have become the latest health food craze here in the US and apparently can cure a plethora of maladies.

Goji berries in my edible garden
This plant packs a punch healthwise and also aesthetically. Impressive white and purple trumpet-like flowers from early summer, eye-catching fire-engine-red clusters of delicious berries on a lush green bush (max height 8 ft). The plants will fruit continuously till

Asparagus in my edible garden

Asparagus is one of my favorite veggies and there are two feathery clumps in my garden right now. The great thing about incorporating asparagus in an edible landscape is that once established, it comes back every year for up to 20 years. It usually doesn't need watered because the roots go deep, and is low-maintenance (at least from what I read!)

Since I had never grown asparagus before, I read through several articles on how to do this. Of these, I found the extension fact sheets from OSU, MSU and UMN the most informative. A really useful guide on growing asparagus I found free and public domain from Google Book Search was Gardening For Profit, published in 1909 by Peter Henderson. The asparagus shoots in my garden are now quite skinny (smaller diameter than a pencil), so I cut back the spears and