Coir is not acidic btw. To improve any soil one needs to add organic matter. Compost, and mulch of shredded leaves, wood chips, or pine straw. That would lighten your soil. Continued mulching as it decomposes will loosen your soil up.
If it was me I would add garden soil and compost work it in, turn it over with a shovel, or even remove some of the native soil and replace. Then mulch with bark, or wood chips.
You have to mulch to replace the organic matter as it breaks down.

It makes no sense one cannot use perlite, it isn't acidic it is inert. I myself would not use it as in 5 years it turns to mush and is useless. If you wanted something like perlite I would use diatomaceous earth, not the powder, the horticultural grade that is the same size as perlite. It usually can only be purchased in large quantities for ball parks, and commercial gardens. But you can buy Napa floor dry or Optisorb oil absorbents that are 100% DE. The same company makes them that makes the horticultural commercial products. It will increase water retention, and oxygenate the soil. It is a top rate product.

Goji plants also need the pH fairly high,about 7-8.Adding some lime will most likely help,if the soil is too acidic.Are these going in the ground or pots? Brady

I was reading a little more about coir, and it is slightly acidic, not as much as peat, so no don't use it. My bad. Yes use lime, works well. I have a couple lilacs that love lime. You should prep the area ASAP to allow time for the lime to work.

Goji is not very picky on soil. Its largest commercial planting is in west China, near Tibet and Xinjiang. It is relatively high altitude, cool at night and hot during the day. That is also the place where they plant jujube and some grapes for rasins.

Due to lack of water, wild goji plants are short, but trailing. The leaves are narrow to preserve water. The berries are small and showy to attract birds to spread the seeds.

With this, I won't amend the soil, but make sure the plants do not get wet feet.

We are dealing with compacted soil, and well as stated the best way to correct that was given. My advice was more to improve the soil than what is being planted. I'm lucky my native soil is excellent. I just mulch with leaves and compost and it stays really nice.

The OP never says it is compacted soil, but heavy soil (sand).

Topsoil and sand is not heavy at all, but the right soil for goji. With the lack of water, native goji has to grow deep roots to find water. Loose sand and topsoil make it easy.

Whenever I plant anything, I try to grow in like native situation. The only real soil improvement I have done is to grow blueberry. My native soil is not acid enough for blues.

I do not remember improving soil with other plantings. It is just me....

I always improve soil, but most of my plantings are in raised beds. I grow a lot of vegetables and I always amend soil. The OP states roots will smother that only happens in compacted soil.

Here are some photos of the goji planting in China. The soil is very dry and poor. But I think the berry quality is much better than the commercial planting in Pennsylvania. We feed our plants too much.

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Thank you for your replies.

RedSun, those pictures are astonishing to say the least. Wow! I had heard Goji only needs air and sun. Made a believer out of me!

Drew51, I had already added a bit of coir and perlite before I got your message here. But luckily I had some wood ash to add so the pH will help counter the coir I think.

Will keep everyone posted on my twig experiment.

Right now they are in a Geopot - if I get some leaf out, I will know how to tweak my native soil a little. (It's hard not to resist the temptation to add anything to a container or garden!)

I have 2 goji berry bushes that I planted in the ends of the shown raised garden. They are doing great. I used a mixture of top soil, garden soil and humus/manure.

It also depends on your gardening style.

Drew is a fine gardener. He likes to work and has a lot of time to garden, and post here to help others. He uses raised bed to get the most yield.

I like low maintenance gardening. I have plenty space, so high yield is not the top priority. Taste is. The berries and fruits we pick from local U-pick definitely taste better than commercial grown. We do not know how they grow and feed the plants.

Leaf vegetable is a different story. Feeding and good soil are good since we only need the leaves, not fruits.

Interesting berries, I probably would over feed. I will make sure if I try them not to over do it! Yes ash will drive PH up and should counter the coir. It's not that basic. Well if they like a higher PH it is a little puzzling as the photos look like a poor sandy soil, and those are usually acidic.
Those people don't look Chinese either!

You know a lot of plants don't like to be fed much. And some like dry soil too, like Lavender likes dry soil.
Some say raspberries don't like to be fed much. I think that is false. They may do OK not fed, but feeding them they explode! But yes some plants prefer poorer soil, as they have adapted to that environment.
Have you guys tried Magnolia Vine berries? They are easy to grow, Well the cultivar Eastern Prince is. I guess the other cultivars need a male and female vines. Eastern does not, having perfect flowers. It is one of the 50 essential Chinese herbs. They are really different. I will always grow them as they make an excellent tea, super unique. Terrible raw btw. Dried I heard they are OK.
Oh those Goji berries look like the very hot bird peppers, interesting!

Most of the workers are Chinese and some are Tibetan.

The lady who shows her face is a westerner. Not sure what country. They were visiting the goji field near Tibet.

Some say Tibetan goji tastes better than others. I do not know.....

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Charlie, that's what I am hoping for! Gives me hope as I gaze at my little twigs.

Drew, yes, very puzzling, looking at the soil in RedSun's pictures and what I have read, it seems these things really do grow on just sun and air. Charlie added manure and he is getting nice bushes though.

They aren't what I would call a "pretty" bush, but if they are half as nutritious as what the claims are, I would be delighted to have them grow in my yard, even though my sun-space is at a premium.

I am new at gardening and there is so much to learn!

Brady, I have been debating, ground or pots because my native soil here is almost like just going to the beach... after the first few inches down, it's just gray sand - and gojis are supposed to grow in sand.

Most of my garden (about 60%) is in tall raised beds with no bottom, about 2'-3' tall. They are just sitting on the ground for drainage over the "sand".

I had to have 'topsoil' trucked in to mix with the loads of amendments for the wooden containers I spent all summer building. In them I have bananas, papaya, mango, figs, sour cherry, orange, avacado, muscadine, blueberries, lemon and (struggling) blackberry....and then greens, etc., in a few beds and loads of portable Brut containers and now geopots..

Some beds I built with cedar bottoms. In them I have dwarf varieties of cherry and pomegranate with apple and peach coming... but the goji's I'm not sure what to do with.

Getting enough sun during the winter rotation in my yard is an issue...summer it's great, winter not so much. Just enough to keep them alive. So I was debating containers for the goji I could move around if I had to...

But I am learning and it's fun! Hubby thinks I have gone off the deep end with my new obsession -

I will update and thanks again for the pictures and input!

Well, it depends on so many things. A good example is growing wine grapes.

In France, the vines are planted very dense, like 4' within rows and 6' row to row. The vines normally are not fed and do not receive regular irrigation. Also the soil is poor.

Here in US, wine grapes are planted about 6-8' within rows and 9-12' row to row. The soil is much better and the vines are fed and often receive regular irrigation. So the vines grow larger and taller. The yield is much higher.

The American way to grow grapes is fine with table grapes since you want the grapes to be juicy and sweet. But for wine grapes, you do not want too much water. Growers actually prefer smaller berries with thick skins. So they can make the best taste wines.

For your goji, how about you give them a try, in different soil, either amended, or un-amended. So you can taste the difference between them.

In another thread about stark bros and how crappy they are for not listing or actually even knowing rootstocks on trees. But everything I have ordered from them (no trees) was awesome, and have you seen their goji berries! Holy moly cultivars I never heard of and one with giant a#$ berries!

RedSun - Drew, I have been thinking about what you said about trying different varieties in different growing medium to see what works best and it sounds like the perfect plan!

I'm going to try some in mainly sandy soil, some in almost pure wood ash, some in "Al's Gritty Mix" with turface etc. and some in regular garden mix. I will put them all in deep pots in the sun and see which ones do best.

From what I have read, there are basically 2 types, phoenix tears (what I have) and the crimson star goji from china. I will need to buy the crimson star,

My 3 little twigs: One plant has lots of new buds coming out, one is getting a few and the third, nothing, but since they're all in the same medium, I can't really use these for my "test".

I will keep you posted!

There are some fancy names, like Big Life Berry, etc. Not sure if they are real variety names.

If you search GW, some complained about the tastes of the Goji berries. I do not know if that is because of the culture (water, light, feed, etc), or the variety.

This is the same thing like blackberry/blueberry does not taste sweet, etc. There are so many factors.

The best clues are the native growing conditions.

From what I understand raw they are not very good. One needs to dry them like raisins for best flavor. Many berries are like this. Mealy, grainy tasting. Like currants which are horrible raw, but unreal processed, one has to know how to prepare them. If looking for good raw fruit, go elsewhere. Much like Chester blackberry. It is not good fresh, but excellent as jam. The acid in it makes it great for jam.
I'm making pepper jelly today as I have so many hot peppers from last summer. You can use the jelly with cream cheese on crackers. Maybe add fruit too. Or melt and use as a glaze on any meats, pork, fish. Today I'm using lemon drop peppers and making a yellow jam.
Mixed with cream cheese it makes an excellent dip.
Or with Rotel diced tomatoes, Velveeta cheese, makes another excellent very hot cheese dip.
I want this one to be hot, but have enough for another batch which I may combine with yellow raspberries and make a sweet-hot jam, by itself is good on crackers.

I can process about any fruits. Goji probably would make an awesome tea too, or a syrup, or as juice. That's what I would do with the berries. No they are not good fresh no matter what the growing conditions.

RedSun,Drew, uh oh, another twist in my little experiment! Not only do I need to see what they grow best in, but how they taste once grown... (I admit right now I would be happy just to "get" berries from these little twigs!)

Drew how on earth did you keep your peppers this long??

Drew how on earth did you keep your peppers this long??

Powdered, pickled, dried whole, and in the case of the jelly/jam frozen. They hold up really well, don't stick together either. Plus for jelly I'm boiling them in vinegar, so texture doesn't matter.

I also have a few plants indoors. They are actually perennials
.

Peppers are a lot of fun to grow. I grew mostly hot peppers last summer, this summer the sweets. Italian frying peppers, Hungarian paprika,Western chili peppers too.
I had some last year, I grilled the green chili's let cool, removed skin, and froze in baggies for use as green chill, man they were good! I love green chili peppers, such flavor for Mexican dishes, even Italian.

I bet goji makes some excellent juice. You could make a syrup, and use the syrup as a concentrate for juice, or right over pancakes or ice cream. Sounds great! I could use a goji martini! A little syrup some vodka and maybe 7 up soda, yum! tequila sunrise with goji syrup instead of the tasteless grenadine. Vodka, orange juice and goji syrup sounds decent too.
Infuse vodka with them. Add 15 raw berries to a bottle of vodka, let sit a month, filter them out and you have infused vodka. This works great with currants.

I live in Raleigh NC and I am desperately trying to rip out the Goji berries from my garden. I planted one plant that I purchased years ago before they got popular and one seedling that I grew from seeds scraped out of the dried berries I bought at the local Asian market. I improved the soil in the row that I planted them but they eventually crept out of that zone and grew just fine in the native soil which is what I would call sandy loam and on the acid side (though not acid enough to keep blueberries happy).

Goji do require no care at all and mine live just fine in my damp garden (we do have some dry spells in the summer). The problem is that they spread out with these very long "arms" that root where ever they touch the ground. They also don't produce enough shade to keep the weeds out of the middle of them and they are too thorny to hand weed. Birds also spread them far and wide after eating the berries.

I'm in zone 7b and my Goji bushes only bloom in the fall and make berries during the winter. They only seem to ripen if we have a spell of mild weather in December or January (which we often do). I think that this causes the berries to be very small, about the size of a puffed grain of rice. Not worth the space they take up in the garden in my book. The flavor is harsh. For the space they take up - 4 feet by 8 feet and 3 feet tall - I maybe get 6 berries.

I have overheard other local gardeners talking up their Goji plants and saying theirs produce larger fruit. They also talk about getting berries in the winter. I have seen the ads for the larger fruiting types but I have not seen them in person.

My mine complaint is the invasive-ness, and I am not growing them in the "perfect" environment. Be careful with this plant.

Thanks John for that report. With so many other berries to grow, i think I will pass on these myself.

trianglejohn - I regret to inform you, but your goji bushes have a personality disorder. They must believe that they are an everbearing raspberry. I can recommend a good fruit psychologist for your goji bushs, if you think it will help. Mine bloom throughout the warm months an produce berries starting in August and until the first freeze. Maybe mine have a disorder, since they pal around with artichokes. I can almost here them talking to each other. The chokes are saying, "Hey, you guys are really skinny! Haw Haw." The gojis probably do not want to feel left out, so they try to act like they are artichokes, saying, "No we are just like you; see we are fruiting when you fruit." What do you think? Possible?

Oh no! Now I have to add 'socially adjusted vs renegades' to my little goji trial! When will it end?

Drew...YUMMY! I can't wait until spring...

This is a typical situation with exotic plant planted in exotic environment. There can be success, but results can certainly vary.

I do not know if this has to do with the variety or just the plant culture (soil, water, etc).

Yes, they are just still new to us. This is why the OP (flgardengurl) wants to experiment. Good thing to do.

Does anybody know what the best tasting berries are? It looks like they would love a spot in my yard. I saw somewhere that one cultivar lived out in the desert by Promontory Utah brought there by the Chinese that worked on the Transcontinental railroad. http://www.timelessamerica.com/2010/09/promontory-utah-transcontinental.html
The soil out there is very poor, I wouldn't even call it sandy but more of a dusty loam. Also the soil for that area is going to be very alkaline and have high calcium/magnesium levels with some salt content. To me the pictures of the goji field in China looks a lot like eastern Navada. I haven't tried growing any of them because I prefer fresh eating fruit, but if they would do well here it is a tempting idea.

This post was edited by gregkdc1 on Thu, Jan 29, 15 at 12:16

CharlieBoring - your comments are music to my ears! For years everyone around here has been saying "it's the GARDENER that has the problem" and I've always suspected it was the plants!

I am tempted to try growing the black fruited Goji berries. Not sure where I will squeeze them in. I'm at the stage where I am ripping out under-performers and either trying new stuff or expanding the bushes and trees that taste good.

I would only consider growing a Goji bush if I could see it with fruit on it when I bought it and knew for certain that it was raised in my area.

I just bought a matured goji berry plant which is already fruiting. Haven't planted onto the ground yet. What fertilizer is suitable for goji berry plants? Some say mushroom compost will do. I read info stating that fertilizer for roses is suitable for goji berries. How often do I need to fertilize it? Can anyone give suggestions here? Thanks!

I know goji is in the nightshade family like tomatoes. I have 3 black goji bushes. I mixed mushroom compost in with my yard soil and added lava rocks, washed pistachio shells (they had been salted) and some eggshells for drainage. I like using the eggshells and pistachio shells because they will eventually decompose and add to the soil. I would also add some twigs or fine mulch if its really heavy or any organic matter.

When they are old enough i use a organic tomato fertilizer lightly in the spring and mid-summer because they produce fruit 2x year. As mentioned lime will work but keep in mind i don't think it works immediately as i have used it in heavy soil myself.

Also if you have heavy clay soil. Most clay tends to be alkaline. Clay soil actually has a lot of nutrients in it its just so heavy that the plants can't use it. So adding carbon and drainage is probably your best bet. I have heavy clay and i actually started amending the area i would plant in a year and a half before and kept the goji plants in pots over the winter indoors. The pistachio shells i mentioned are considered a carbon. I would wash throughly if you use them or buy unsalted as goji can not tolerate salinity. I bust half of mine up with a hammer and leave the others as halve sizes. Add organic matter as mentioned. If it's very heavy clay and sand that pretty much gives you a concrete consistency. I would consider ammendment before planting. Especially with the lime and items myself and others have mentioned. I did till the ground very deeply when amending.