I got to try one fully ripe Carmine/Tillamook Goumi and I’m in love with them! No astringency tasted like sweetend Hawaiian Punch and great texture. The seed was very easy to chew it seemed hollow. I really like the seeds texture. The flesh that stays attached to the seed is very sweet. The trick is to let them rippen as long as possible an get a really deep red color and a little shriveled.
Birds ate all but five of my goumi berries this morning before I could put a net over the bush an put rubber snakes out. I was going to today.
It was loaded with berries yesterday !!! Robin’s ate them all in a couple hours!!
I’ll be putting a in whole hedge of these bushes they are extremely easy to grow early fruiting ripening middle to late May in zone 6b and frost didn’t bother them any. I would highly recommend growing goumi.
This picture is from 4 days ago. An that’s just one limb
I’ll probably reach out tomorrow, is she open on Sundays ? I’ve wanted to order stuff from her, but wanted to do a sizable order next year. Guess can always just get 1 or 2 things this time.
Not sure yet, she’s going to do the order/ship tomorrow. I also ordered 3 or 4 gooseberries (she wasn’t sure if she had 1 of them left or not)
So would be the goumi + 3-4 G.B. just guestimate is probably somewhere around 100? Depending on how much the shipping is. I can repost with actual price later. Think the goumi is like 35 then like 10 per GB maybe ?
The literature says they are thorny but the pix don’t show that. Is it a challenge to harvest fruit off goumis?I’d like to try them.
There is some chitchat about invasive *potential *waiting to happen probably bird related spread.
From reading online, autumn olive and Russian olive are considered the more invasive varieties than multiflora “goumi” (red gem, sweet scarlet, carmine/Tillamook)
I have not seen any thorns on my bushes, so I don’t think they have thorns unless they only develop thorns when mature (which would be the opposite of most things, which are thorniest when young).
The genus is definitely known for invasiveness, but I haven’t heard of problems with this species (yet? maybe it’ll suddenly spread like wildfire at some point).
Me personally… I would not call goumi delicious… I mean that is reserved for the best… goumi are not the best.
Their flavor is mild and fruity, their sweetness is mild, their tartness is mild… all 3 work well together but there is nothing wow/delicious about it.
To me they rate lower than blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, some raspberries (especially blacks).
Goumi and Red rasbperries are sort of at the same level to me, Good… but just Good.
Blueberries, Strawberries, blackberries, black raspberries… get on up there to Very Good.
Figs and Persimmons,… Excellent / Delicious
One thing that makes goumi stand out more is how early they ripen here… Strawberries ripen first then Goumi… so there is not a lot of other things ripening when the goumi first start ripening. It is good to have something different that taste good… when you only have one other thing ripening.
But by the time my Goumi are ripening their last fruits… Blueberries, Blackberries, Mulberries, Raspberries are ripening… and the goumi bush gets much less attention.
Of course opinions vary…
I have Red Gem, Sweet Scarlet and Carmine… and they all taste very similar to me, Good,… but not Great, not Excellent. Nowhere near a fig or persimmon.
!!! Robin’s ate them all in a couple hours!!
they are extremely easy to grow early fruiting ripening middle to late May in zone 6b and frost didn’t bother them any. I would highly recommend growing goumi.
It’s so frustrating! Oh well, what can I do? 
