Sunday, October 12, 2008

On seeing the first kuko of Autumn

Yesterday I noticed that the first wolfberries (kuko) are going red. This caused me no end of excitement because it means that I'll soon be on the path to eternal life thanks to all the antioxidants that I'll be consuming.

I thought it might also be a good idea to try a fresh wolfberry, but this proved to be a bit of disappointment. The berries had a distinctly uncooked vegetable-like taste, somewhat like raw aubergine (aubergine and wolfberry are the same family). One of them was also full of seeds.

I'm hoping that when the temperature drops, they'll start getting juicier and sweeter.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I can't believe these produced in the first year in the ground. Did the nursery say how old the plants were that you bought at the beginning of the season?

Thanks
-Luke

Rod said...

Nurseries in Japan tend to be quite uncommunicative about things like that - you're lucky if they deign to mention even the type of plant that you've purchased. Judging by the size of the ones I bought, I'd guess they were second year in their pots. As you'll see when you read on, I became very disenchanted with wolfberries - they taste vile, the plants themselves are ugly, sickly looking things, and yet they're almost impossible to remove completely.

A lot of what I read about wolfberries turned out not to be true at all, including how long it takes for them to fruit.

Unknown said...

Ah yes indeed. I think that is actually how I stumbled across your blog. I was reading up on growing goji. I've started mine from seed a month ago. Figured what the heck try it out and see. I actually love the dried berries in yogurt(preferably vanilla because it's already sweetened or plain plus a little honey to help with the bitter berry) I have yet to eat a fresh berry however.

-Luke