Yup, I've got a couple of mature ones and a couple more on the way. The fruit ripens here in early to mid August. It's about the size of a small tart cherry, but is more of a football or teardrop shape than round. It has a single, small pit in the middle, which is it's only drawback -- tedious to pit them. The flavor is excellent cooked, IMO -- it tastes like a mix of tart cherry and cranberry. It makes a wonderful cranberry type sauce if cooked the same way. It also makes a very nice jam, syrup, or preserves. I also like to put them in with apples to make pie or crisp. They also can be dried into a product that is virtually indistinguishable in flavor from the "Craisins" sold in the grocery store, although mine are not as soft, since the commercial ones are treated with something (I think vegetable oil and glycerine) to keep them soft. The bush is hardy, attractive, and easy to grow. It is one of the very first things to bloom, actually before the forsythia blooms by a few days. The foliage is somewhat glossy, and it does get a little bit of fall color, although not the most brilliant fall show by any means. The flower buds that form in the late summer add interest in the winter. Mine are too astringent to eat raw unless they are dead ripe and very soft. Birds don't seem to eat them. I think that there may be some named clones that have fruit that is more palatable out of hand. Mine are just from seed -- I started with one, and the rest are it's progeny. I think this is another fruit with a lot of potential. The only down side is the somewhat tedious pit. The method I found to do this easily is to pick over and wash the fruit, then put it in a large kettle with just a little bit of water, and boil/steam for about 10 minutes. This makes the fruit mushy-soft. I then put the fruit into a colander with small holes, and mush the pulp through the holes with the back of a spoon, leaving the pits behind. This yields a pretty large volume of bright burgundy-red pulp and a relatively small volume of pit -- at least they're not virtually all pit or seed like some wild types of true Prunus cherries.

I like the fruits, as does one of my four kids - but everyone else I've offered them to declined to try them again - or anything else 'different' that I bring in for folks to try. Seems most place it in the 'cranberry-flavored cardboard' category. Certainly tart and somewhat astringent when still firm, but if you wait until they're very dark red(for the red varieties) and beginning to shrivel a little, they're quite tasty. If nothing else, they make a nice ornamental - first thing to bloom here in the spring; there are three nice ones, probably 15 ft tall, in a municipal park that are covered in the tiny little yellow flowers in late Feb/early March; look not too much unlike large Forsythia bushes. I have a hard time beating the birds to the fruits.

I planted a sweet scarlet goumi back around 2004 on the edge of my property in a sunny location. It's maybe 7 feet tall now and beautiful. When it was young it was hard to get the fruit, it would be loaded with fruit and then the next day all the fruit would have vanished. They wouldn't be on the ground, just gone. As it grew older I believe it started making enough fruit for all. I believe it fruited the third year after I planted it. I never netted it. I tried cooking the fruit one year and it tasted like tomato sauce to me. When it's fresh and squishy between the fingers it's very juicy and sweet. Unfortunately seeds are a problem with people when I try to get others to eat the fruit. When fresh I swallowed the seeds whole but when frozen and thawed the seeds became too chewy and scratchy. think the fruit tastes of a cherry lollipop. You know how a cherry lollipop is suppose to taste of cherry but doesn't really hit it? That's what the scarlet goumi fruit reminded me of. I tried planting a seedling uncultivated goumi and red gem from a nursery but neither lasted the year.

Thanks for the follow-up! A search on this forum turned up just a single reference prior to this post. Have a feeling that no news is not good news when it comes to tomato lists. **** Rain, when searching for information about a variety I sure wouldn't rely on just information from this message site. I'd Google it, see who might be selling seeds, which isn't usually all that helpful since commercial places seldom say anything bad about any variety, LOL, but there's often links to places like the Plant Files at another message site as well as other message sites where tomatoes are discussed a lot. I can't mention those sites here publicaly b'c it's against the rules here at GW and a person can be banned for doing so. Carolyn