Gardenworld

Goji Berry - The Super Fruit

By Dennis Ting - Gardenworld Nursery 

The Goji Berry (Lycium barbarium) plant is a recent addition to the range of plants we have in the garden centre.   

It is widely known as being a "Super Fruit" packed with vitamins, anti-oxidants, amino acids and polysaccarides.  You have to believe its properties given the price currently charged for Goji juice, dried berries and similar products!! 

We have had these plants in the nursery for just over a year now and there is still some amazement expressed by customers when they see the plants and wonder whether it is possible to grow these in Melbourne. 

I have been growing these plants here for several years now and harvest my fruit in December each year so let me tell you a bit about them. 

The plant itself looks fairly ordinary with thin canes and long dull green leaves.  It is actually a member of the Solanaceae family (tomatoes and chillies).  The plant has several growth flushes during the season and in between tends to rest with no active growth.

Understanding food

 

During the week someone sent me a very interesting article from the Australian Financial Review (Jan 23-26,2009). The author Sue Williams was interviewing scientists about what they are finding out about food. One of them was the CSIRO's Ingrid Appelqvist. She was saying that although carrots eaten raw provide fibre, the body does not have the enzymes to break down the carrots cellular structure in order to release the nutrients. "What goes in and comes out is much the same". Instead we should  slightly cook them and then puree them to extract the most nutrients.

The same goes with a tomato. Appelqvist says "...there's much more chance of increasing the bio-availability of lycopene from a grilled tomato as from a raw one. If you add a little olive oil, because its fat soluble it even enhances that in a way". This augers well for tomato sauces and soups in being beneficial in the possible prevention of prostate cancer. Cooked peanuts were also rated better than raw - I suppose thats part of why a lot of Asian food is considered quite healthy.

So next time you eat that healthy raw carrot, consider that you are not getting the best from it.

 

Cheapskate's Hydroponics System !

An email from Dennis Ting:

Back in early November (around Cup Day) I got a couple of Tomato Plants – Tommy Toe and Red Fig varieties and a Chilli - Hot Red variety for my daughters to plant in pots.  I cannot keep the dry soil in the vegetable patch evenly wet so have had heaps of disease in the plants the last couple of years so decided to use pots.  Also probably need crop rotation as a build up of disease no doubt.

 

I used some 300mm plastic Terracotta coloured pots (like my fruit trees) and have not pruned out any of the side shoots at all.  The principle here is that spreading the vigour over many branches results in a shorter plants (as with fruit trees – e.g. Cherries).  I used Debco T&T and a Lucerne Mulch layer to protect the soil from the sun.  As you can see they are all fruiting and looking healthy.

 

On the last couple of hot days I just filled the large saucers with water in the morning.  The plants show no sign of wilting and have retained all the fruit on them despite being in the full sun on the hot days.

 

Not a sophisticated system but it works!

 

While the cat's away...

by James Wall - Gardenworld Nursery

the mice did play. Yes, today Rob Pelletier and I took over am radio station 3AW's The Big Backyard while Jane Edmonson and Darren James were away. I was actually only there for the second hour but we had a good ol' yarn, there were plenty of tomato growing stories and we discussed some of the more popular plants currently being sold at the nursey. One of those I mentioned was the Coprosma Tequila Sunrise. This succulent like plant has awesome coloured foliage and is a low water user. It gets up to waist height but can be trimmed back to keep neat. The foliage colour actually varies throughout the year and you will need to protect young plants from frost. The boys were also impressed by our genovese basil grown in biodegradable pots made from miscanthus grass bound with natural vegetable gums. You simply crack the pot and plant it in the ground. It composts away and comes with no label and no price sticker. This pot is perfect for quick crops like herbs. We are selling hundreds of them which shows that this is what people want to see.

Anyway, its late, and the nursery is open again tomorrow and I'd better not be late ! Tune in to 3AW next Saturday to hear our fruit tree expert Dennis talking after nine. He works at the nursery every Saturday.