anyone grow gojis?

I ordered ten goji roots, phoenix tears variety, and have potted them on leiu of warm weather and they are beginning to wake up and form leafs.
I've read some contradictory stuff on them, though consensus seems to be mildly alkaline soil with good drainage is best. Nitrogen bad.
Since I got to work with the soil I got, which is rather silty loam, I dug down about 24 inches and removed enough gravel to cover my driveway, and below the rock the silt buildup is pretty solid. I've loosened it what I can with a shovel. I got some sand to mix with it come planting season.
I live in E WA state, which I hear at least theoretically is a good growing climate and have heard of others growing them with success in the area.
So my questions are:
What type of soil have you found to be good or bad?
How do you feed it?
How much water?
When can you put them in the ground?
How far down should I loosen compacted soil?
Mulch?
What kind of spacing works?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thomas, I don't know if anybody here has enough experience to answer all your questions, but a few of us were talking about our Goji efforts in this thread last year. Maybe it will help?

Heres my progress so far. This is the biggest one. Seven have woken up so far.
They'll be in pots probably til the end of April due to a late frosty season here in E WA.

And thanks BTW. I'll go through that whole thread with great interest.

Looks like I'll be starting some from seed as well...

Oh, very nice! None of my seedlings last year got that big.

This was from a one year old root. Kinda cheating, bit I'm OK with that.

Six weeks ish

Those roots in the pics are now five large bushes, from which I have dug up almost a dozen other sucker's and there is still more, made 30 cuttings so far, and they had a decent crop last summer. Will post pics when I find them.
These are pretty cool.

Quick to fruit! So cool, thanks for sharing.

It would seem that goji likes chalky soil.

When it's not happy, it still produces fruit, but... At our location we call it yukberry. I consider the taste a mix of watermelon and old socks.

I put a goji in one of my mini kraters. I did mulch around it. We have clay soil. I haven't done anything else. I didn't even water it and we get an average of 11 inches of water a year. It's still alive, though the rabbits ate the tops off, it's got leaves popping out lower.

I think people can over complicate plants. Just plant it. If it doesn't grow well in your location than don't grow it. That's my professional opinion. Or at least the opinion of a lazy permaculture orchardist.

My experience with gojis is that they are very easy to grow, seeds germinate fast and quickly send down a long taproot. Our soil is on the clayish side and they grow vigorously every year. I'm pruning back the long canes in the winter and they come back strong the next year. Propagating from cuttings is also very easy. It's an interesting plant and the berries are delicious fresh, juiced on added to salads. This year I want to try to dehydrate them.

I've found once they establish, which is pretty quick, they don't need water.
I read a thing on how they grow in China, and they irrigate them in the spring (we get spring rains here so I didn't bother) and they fruit better without water, and they like hot and dry. So with my 7 of rain per year and record heat wave and drought last summer, they did great.

I saw some videos on youtube where people talk about goji berries' tendency to sucker. I have a plant that I'd like to plant out into my zone 6a garden in London, Ontario, Canada this year and would like to be proactive about eliminating future work thinning suckers. I would like to plant the goji bery in some type of metal tube that will block suckers from going through. Will this work? How deep would I have to have the tube go down to block any suckering? I was unable to find this type of information elsewhere so I thought I'd tap into the vast knowledge that is permies.com.

Thank you in advance kind permaculture community!

Amjad

RE: Gojis Berries, I got very interested a couple years back and ordered two plants. I planted them and  they are still alive but I haven't paid much attention to them, I was only able to eat a berry or two because my daughter pointed them out. I planted them in a growing area where we grow squash and watermelon, I don't frequent that as often as the area where the veggies and greenhouse are. But I do like them, I spoke to them today and said I would give them more attention. I find that they do need watered, they are just a short distance apart and the one that has received more water has done better.

I think I'll try to root a cutting or two.