Hi All,

I have four prolific goji berry (Gou Qi Zi) plants in my garden.

https://www.americandragon.com/Individualherbsupdate/GouQiZi.html
"Liver and Kidney Deficiency where Jing and Blood cannot
nourish eyes with dizziness, blurred vision and diminished
visual acuity"

Though the above was not the reason why I planted them (it
is a side benefit), I planted them becasue they are
drought tolerant and love high elevations and cold winters.

They are hard to pick and I can't keep up with them. Add
to that, fresh goji's are not all that tasty. As a Keto,
I can taste much diminished levels of sweet, which they
have, but I can also taste much diminished levels of
other things as well. So not all that tasty. (And
I do adore my choke berries.)

I was beginning to think my goji were a mistake and
I should contemplate pulling them out.

So now with winter upon us and the goji's are in full
deciduous mode, I have nothing but bare sticks with
a few thousand red berries on then. Very few fell
off. So I got curious and picked a few and ate
them. Hmmm. These are goji raisins. And I had
heard that drying goji removed the bitter taste.
It is true.

And they are a lot easier to pick as raisins too.
(They are still a bit of a pain to remove all
the stems though.) And oh holy molly the are
yummy (at last).

My OMD (Oriental Medical Doctor) told me Gou Qi Zi's
are in short supply so the price has sky rocketed.
I told him if he lived closer, he could come harvest
all he wanted. But he might not talk to me ever
after that. They are a pain to harvest

$23/lb:
https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Goji-Berries-Resealable-Book/dp/B075HM2JKP

We have another storm coming in tomorrow, so I will have
to wait for them to dry out again before harvesting more.

Is it me or is harvesting in the winter seem like cheating?

-T

On 2/1/24 00:51, T wrote:

> $23/lb:
> https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Goji-Berries-Resealable-Book/dp/B075HM2JKP

Woops! That is $11.50 / lb

T wrote:
....
> We have another storm coming in tomorrow, so I will have
> to wait for them to dry out again before harvesting more.
>
> Is it me or is harvesting in the winter seem like cheating?

congrats! pick them before the storm... ;)

songbird

On 2/1/24 05:16, songbird wrote:
> T wrote:
> ...
>> We have another storm coming in tomorrow, so I will have
>> to wait for them to dry out again before harvesting more.
>>
>> Is it me or is harvesting in the winter seem like cheating?
>
> congrats! pick them before the storm... ;)
>
>
> songbird

They have been stormed on several times now! Frozen
virtually every night. 50 to 70 mile an hour winds.
Overcast. Bright sunlight. These things are bullet
proof! And I was thinking of pulling them out!

It is storming right now. I will wait a few days for
the mud to subside before picking again. Another
good wind should dry things out nicely.

Raisins on the vine. Who would have thought.