Lydia John

I'm growing one thornless, low growing goji berry bush in my home garden (Southern California; zone 10). It produced a lot of decent tasting fruit last year, with berries seeming to pop up overnight for a few weeks. I thought that was impressive for a plant that looks like a little handful of twigs with a few thin leaves. A year later it hasn't gotten much bigger. Any tips on increasing the growth rate, or getting it to spread by runner to fill a greater area?


Ben--My berry crop never made it inside because it was wiped out by grazing toddlers, but I did manage to pick one of the fresh berries off of the bush for my chef friend to try. She told me that the fresh berries would make a nice addition to a "plated salad", but that they wouldn't work for a mixed salad because they would fall to the bottom. So if you would like to market the fresh berries to local restaurants, the plated salad application might be something to mention. Because of their size they don't have to be cut up, and they don't roll off of plates like cherry tomatoes. I also noticed that people like them better when they are told prior to tasting that they are related to tomatoes, but that they don't like them as much when they are only told the name/that they are "berries".

I am in a warmer zone, so I can't directly answer your question. My experience has been that they do seem to be a perennial that gets stronger and more weather tolerant over time, in comparison to the first year or two. Perhaps it would be helpful to plant more types of runner beans than just the scarlett runners in case some work better than others. Personally I like these:
https://www.ranchogordo.com/products/ayocote-morado

I found them to be pretty sturdy plants. I tried the Sunset runner beans from Baker Creek, and they are pretty, I've also tried some white flower runner beans in the past but I didn't try to keep those multiple years. The vine seemed smaller on the white ones.

Thanks for your responses. I'm in zone 10a (Southern California). The spot I'm looking at planting it might have more shade in the next few years as my pomegranate shrub gets bigger...that might work out well. Since the ice cream bean tree is evergreen I didn't think about how the fruiting might be affected by pruning time--thanks for pointing that out. I will read up on it.

From what I've read, ice cream bean trees grow quickly, are evergreen, and get big. Realistically, how small could one be maintained in ground with pruning about twice a year? Are the roots typically damaging to porches or walkways? Do they fruit if kept small, or do they need to get big in order to fruit? Would a low water situation help keep the tree smaller?

The reason for my questions: I was eating an ice cream bean the other day and planted the seeds in cups, and now I have several seedlings. They are cute and healthy looking and I'm debating about if I should give them all away or try planting one myself. I would like to plant it in ground (to conserve water) if it is possible to do so without causing damage to the sidewalk. I enjoy pruning and shaping plants, but it's important to me to grow things that can stay in a size range that I'm able to manage.

Cujo Liva wrote:

If I can get over the time/effort/money loss of the fruit trees, I'd plant a couple of nut trees and expand the raised bed veggie garden.

If any of your fruit trees are stone fruit, could you graft almonds onto them? I'm not 100% sure if it would work, or if almonds grow in your area. If it did work you might be able to do it for free if anyone near you is pruning their almond tree and willing to share the trimmings.

My trees are still babies, so take that into account...but here are my thoughts:

I would encourage you to go to your local farmer's market about once a month for a year, even if the food there is not in the price range that you typically buy, and pick up a few pieces of fruit that you haven't tried before. I think that I might have tried slightly different varieties or types of fruit (such as more evergreen fruit trees) after trying different locally grown fruits.

In hindsight, I also should have checked the exact recommended chill hours from multiple sources, rather than relying on the nursery to tell me which trees were "low-chill".

I did intentionally plant some fruits that are more expensive to try to save on groceries. If I was to do it again, I might focus only on the higher priced fruit. What I realized was that price in the grocery store has practically no correlation to ease of growing in my climate zone. For example, if I tried to grow apples I would have only a couple of low-chill varieties to choose from, and they need a significant amount of water. In contrast, I bought a box of pomegranates for my family at Costco and realized I could buy a drought friendly, bare root pomegranate tree for about the same price. Don't rule out any type of fruit till you do a little research.

I planted one nut tree that is not ideal for this climate, but that if it works out it will provide nuts that that will not need complicated harvesting or processing. That is one thing I definitely don't regret--planting only fruiting trees where the fruit can be eaten straight off the tree, and keeping them pruned small. Life has gotten busier since I planted them, and it's nice to be able to go out and enjoy doing tree stuff when I have time, rather than feeling stressed about what the trees need done.

These are the only two I'm growing, but I hope that you are able to find the ones you are looking for. I'm not sure where the purple tree collards come from either originally or along their way to my local area (I started with an cutting that didn't have a variety listed).

I'm in southern California (zone 10a), and we have a warm and very dry summer season and a cool, sometimes wet winter season. A lot of plants either do not really survive if planted in the summer and even regional established plants often go dormant. The best times to plant kale, collards, etc., is during the earlier part of the winter season. I'm not sure of the dates, but think I planted at least one of the collard cuttings at the end of the summer before last and gave it supplemental water and afternoon shade to survive till winter time. I think the kale I started indoors around the same time and then planted it in the soil when the temperatures started getting lower.

So basically winter is my primary gardening season.

I did not read every post in this thread, since it's a few pages, but I saw a few comments with questions about the stems of walking stick kale, etc. I was trimming back some of my thousand head kale today since some had blown over in the recent storm, as well as my purple tree collard, which needed pruning. Since I had just seen this thread, I took a picture of the two cut stems to share. The one on the left that looks more like the consistency of wood is the purple tree collard. The one on the right is the thousand head kale. I strip off the lower leaves on the kale to avoid pest problems and contamination from touching the soil (we have a massive feral cat problem locally, so I try to grow greens that either sit above the soil level or are always cooked). So the kale tends to grow straight up and look like a little palm tree. The collards send out side branches. Both get very tall (maybe 5-6 feet).

Extra water does seem to get the plants to "catch" and produce extra roots along the vines. The chilacayote squash I planted has taken off with the greater than usual amount of rain we have been having in the Southern California/Los Angeles area. I decided that if the vines that were under the covered front porch were the doing best, and the ones that got sun were dying, it might be worth trying to move the whole vine into dappled, almost full shade before summer hits. I wrapped the vines around the corner from my front (south facing) porch to the side yard (east facing) where there are several feet between my house and my neighbor's house. I'm hoping it will root there enough for me to eventually disconnect it from the initial planting spot.

I have a question that might be silly...but I'm curious. Is it possible to graft squash vines that aren't the same group (Cucurbita ficifolia)? I wouldn't mess with it for an annual plant, but since chilacayote can live a few years it might be worth it. It seems like theoretically I could have it getting strong each winter, and then graft something else on the southern end just for the summer so that the chilacayote gets the shade and the grafted variety gets full sun but the benefits of established roots. As far as I know, there's only one Cucurbita ficifolia, but it can form "interspecific hybrids with Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita moschata, and Cucurbita pepo", at least according to wikipedia. I really have no idea how this works.