Delicious ground cherry!

I want to grow a ground cherry with great flavor for fresh eating and for pies or preserves or "raisins". Do you have any suggestions for varieties and sources for seeds? I've never tasted the Hawaiian Poa [?] or any of the South African versions. Got any leads? Thanks! Brian in zone 5/6a.

Good question, I was wondering about ground cherries too. I've never had any, do they have large pits? I don't even know anybody that has tasted one.

If you are talking about the "common" "ground cherry" (Physalis peruviana) you may be disappointed. The ones that I grew tasted "interesting" more than anything.

It's not a cherry!!!
The seeds are tiny, but usually PLENTIFUL.

D-mail me and I will give you the seed sources if I still have them.

I grew a ground cherry sold by Johnny's Seeds last year. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste. Think of a cross of a very small cherry tomato and a pineapple. However the fruits are very small and you want to pick them at maximal ripeness so I never got any real harvest - just an occasional nibble while walking by. Based on the low yield I don't plan on growing them again.

Scott

The only one that I have eaten is the Physalis Virginiana, which grew wild in Virginia. Delicious it is not. Some of the old folks used them to make tomato preserves, but they are pretty taste less. There are a number of things called ground cherries but most of them fit the category commonly called husk tomatoes. The fruit somwhat resembles a small tomato which grows in a husk. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/74360/ The similar Physalis peruviana http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1979/ has already been mentioned. There is also Physalis pruinosa http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/51542/
and several others.
For the most part they are annual vegetables. Culture is the same as for tomatoes. Here is the list from Plantfiles. Some of the named cultivars may be better. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=ground+cherry&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bblank_cultivar%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

This message was edited Jan 16, 2008 10:45 AM

I have one variety that volunteers after the soil is really warm. It is very good for pies and such if the fruits are mashed well [same for garden huckleberry]. In both cases let them fully ripen.

When I planted the ground cherry seeds intensively in a wide row, they invaribly were ruined by an insect, but the volunteers were not bothered that way when more scattered.

I have planted Husk Tomato Aunt Molly's for past few years, well actually I haven't had to plant as they now volunteer. I really like them mostly for fresh eating. I grew one with other plants in an Earth box last summer. After they begin to ripen I keep a small bowl ful on kitchen counter for snacking. I used to use them in cooking and made delicious jam.

Donna

Low yield? I had so many of ground cherrys I was throwing them to the birds.

They should be picked a shade green and allowed to ripen inside because they will split. They can be used a bit green if cooking them when mixed half & half with cherry tomatos, and bit of lemon they make a great marmalade (sp?)


This message was edited Jan 18, 2008 8:35 PM

elfeik, I had lots of fruits but when you consider they were the size of small blueberries you need to have a huge number of them to make anything. So, overall the yield was not good. How many plants did you plant to get enough yield to do anything with?

On my variety I didn't have too bad a problem with splitting. Maybe its a smaller type compared to what you are growing?

Scott

I've been growing ground cherries for about 15 years. The varieties that I have grown are Goldie, Cossack, Aunt Mollies, Cape Gooseberry, P. virginiana, some local, wild, unidentified varieties, Chinese Lantern and several tomatillo's (same family). Goldie self seeds itself every year in my garden. Most the plants get removed via weeding, but I always leave a few plants to have a fall harvest.

For taste and productivity, I think that Goldie is the best followed by a close second by Aunt Mollies'. Cape Gooseberry has a number of common names, but needs a longer season than the other varieities I have mention. It is actually a different species. (as well as Chinese Lantern and tomatilla's) It's taste is excellent and different from the others mentioned here but I get few ripe fruit in my area from it.

There are probably more than 80 species of Physalis, and there are many varieties that are found throughout the US. For most of the them, the plants are toxic but the ripe fruit is usually not toxic. There should be an emphasis on "most" and "ripe" and "usually". Please be cautious, as there is a lot of mis-identification and mis-information on the Internet and in catalogs for this family of fruits, probably because they spread easily and there are many different kinds. Identification on the net and in some catalogs does not appear to always be accurate to me. I do have some concerns about some of the ground cherry info in Dave's plant files as well, but I am not expert enough ask for corrections.

Because of the above posts, I want to share some culturing information. Goldie and its relatives need to have the small seeds planted on top of the starting media. Do not cover them. They need light and maintained humitidy to start well. They can take several weeks to start and like heat. They are sensitive to transplant shock, more so than tomatos or peppers, for example. Be careful to not disturb the roots. They do not tolerate frost, so do not transplant early. Even in zone 5, you will get plenty of fruit transplanting in early June. Once you have had a few plants go to fruit in the garden, they will successfully self seed for later years. Expect the first year harvest to not be as good as successive years. If you give the selfseeders a little help, they should produce well for you.

Plants need regular water to produce well. During dry spells they will drop fruit prematurely, which around here happens in August. Unripe fruits should not be eaten. Never pick the fruit. It will drop from the plant when mature. It is OK to let them lie on the ground for some time. That appears to help mature some of the fruit. Of course, if you have insect pests that attack them you will need to collect them.

Goldie produces fruit in size between 1/2 and 3/4 inches. One of the problems with ground cherries is that many of the dropped fruit will never ripen completely. Discard any fruit that is not completely golden. Any tinge of green will indicate a fruit that will not taste good and have some potential toxicity. Probably not enough to cause harm unless consumed in large quantities, which you would not want to do anyway. However, keep in mind that livestock (and children) can become ill eating plants and fruit of many of these kinds of plants.

The taste of a large and fully ripened Goldie (cossack, Aunt Mollies) is delightful. If you want to make raisins or dry them, you will need to remove the calyx. A ripe fruit inside an intact calyx will last a long time without drying. Cossack produces a fruit that is exposed through the calyz, which makes it an interesting novelty. However exposing the fruit outside of the calyx is not a desirable trait for me. I believe it interferes with storage and does not protect the berry.

One trick I like to do is plant them in a narrow raised row. While this makes it harder to maintain soil moisture, the ripening fruits will fall and roll to the base of the row, making stoop havesting easier. I don't bend as well as I used to and , hence, watering is easier. Narrow raised rows are less likley to self seed, however.

The local wild varieities and P. virginiana do not compare in taste to Goldie or other commercial varieties. It is worth it to seek a commecial varieity. If you live in warmer zone 6 areas or warmer zones, then you should also try Cape Gooseberry. While it is not as sweet, it has stronger overtones of pineapple flavor and is quite good. It is a taller and woodier plant. The longer growing season will allow this one to produce more ripe fruits for you. I beleive this is the "puho" found in Hawaii.

Dried ground cherries are sometimes available on the net via raw foods retailers or health food retailers. I bought some dried ground cherries to try off the net that supposedly came from Peru or the surrounding area. Those fruits had an unpleasant flavor though were were large in size. It is my intention to plant some seed from them to see if the problem was that they were not fully ripened before drying or if this is a different variety.

Ground cherries are easy and worthwhile and I hope you will give them a try. While I am aware of the Watchdog reviews of Thompson and Morgan (and agree with many of them), they were my original source of Goldie and Cape Gooseberry many years ago. If you try to grow ground cherry seed, just remember to use a humidity dome, plant on top of the soil and keep warm.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought the information from my personal experiences might be helpful

krowten, Now your post is just the most real and honest and practical one agoing on groundcherries!! I agree with everything you say whereof I have experience. My grandmother raised them nearly a hundred years ago perhaps and there were volunteers for many years. I finally got a new start many years ago from most likely Shumway. These things are like weeds I tell you. They only germinate when it is fully warm; it is best to let them fully ripen yellow; and when I tried raising them in a concentrated area, they were bitten by an insect making tiny holes in the fruit, but volunteers were ALWAYS ok.
I had a volunteer garden huckleberry come up a few years ago after so long a time! This plant is not to be cofused with the noxious nightshade weed which has small purple berries hanging in small clisters. The edible huckleberry has large berries looking straight up in the air.

Indy, Thanks for the kind endorsement. I've tried the garden huckleberries, probably about different 6 kinds now. I have yet to find one that I like to eat. I've been working on an article on ground cherries for NAFEX's publication, so the topic was fresh on my mind. You feedback was helpful as I was not sure there would be much interest in what I have to offer on the topic.

In zone 5b, you will be able to get some Cape Gooseberry fruit. I think you would like them. Just start a little early indoors so you have a large plant to plant out in spring. Consider using a 10 gallon pot sunk into the ground during the summer so that you can move indoors for a month or so in the fall by lifting the pot (you should get some ripe fruit even without doing that). Cape Gooseberry plants are more brittle than the more common ground cherries, so consider staking them. In some years I've had damage to my cape gooseberries from storms and wind.

I have noticed that flea beetles are very fond of ground cherry leaves and have found ground cherries to be a useful distraction plant for helping to keep flea beetles from eggplant. I do not have a problem with insects attacking the actual ground cherries unless I leave them on the ground long enough for the calyx to break down.

Again, thanks!

krowten, thanks for your detailed post. How tall do your plants get and how many do you grow? I had one plant and it got maybe 4' tall. It was a very nicely shaped plant. But, I never got much harvest at all. I think one thing that may have reduced my productivity last summer is the drought. I watered, but not enough I expect. I would like to find some way to get a good yield because the taste is quite good. I was not planning on growing them out again this year, but I will surely have some self-seeders and I may let a few go and see how they do. "Goldie" is the one I have.

Scott

Scott,

4' seems much too high to me. Mine only get about 2' high (some a bit higher) but never 4' tall. I am wondering if the version of Goldie you have might be different from the one I have from 10+ years ago. I know that Cape Gooseberry tends to grow more upright and produce fewer fruit, but my goldies grow out more than up. At this point, I just let the self seeders grow if they are not going to be causing a problem for something else. Usually I'll have a few plants crop up in the corn or a raised bed somewhere. They do like full sun here, but most of mine get some edge shading. I've not run into goldie not producing a lot of fruit, especially on a big plant, but remember that a lot of the fruit produced are not usable. It's the "jewels" that you find that keep me from grubbing them out. Cape Gooseberry is much more sparce for me than goldie. What was the source of your seed? I'll check to see if I have some old fruits lying in the garden somewhere to send you some seed if interested (when the snow melts!). There is some chance that mine are a natural hybrid as I've tried a bunch of different kinds, but they still look and taste like the original goldies I bought years ago.

This message was edited Feb 2, 2008 11:18 AM

Four feet tall seems pretty tall to me too. I wonder if there is too much nitrogen in the soil, since I think you also said not too many fruits produced. I am presuming that Aunt Mollies when volunteering are coming true from the seed, mine only grow to2 feet or less, but produce lots of cherries.

Donna

I grew Johnny's Seeds "Goldie" - #773

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/product.aspx?scommand=search&search=ground%2bcherry&item=773

Maybe I was off a bit on the 4'. I was thinking it was quite short compared to my tomatoes and more the height of my eggplants and somehow I came up with 4'. It was definitely at least 3' tall, and growing more out than up compared to eggplants. The soil was of average fertility I would say. Note that this is a fertile climate due to the strong sun and long season compared to you - my tomatoes get 8' tall. I put a handful of 6-6-6 on each plant and thats it. I grew the same seeds you did, elfeik.

How many "jewels" do you think you get a season, krowten? I would say if I had put all of my good ones from last year in one pint-size strawberry container it would be only halfway full. I am wondering how this compares to your yield per plant.

Scott

I'm not krowten, but in answer to your question on groundcherry yield, I get far more than a pint of cherries from one plant. While still in the husk, I have enough to take some to my senior center where a few people know and like ground cherries. In the summer i keep a small container of in the husk ground cherries on my counter to snack on.

Donna

Thanks, Krowten, for your wonderful entry. Now I'm inspired! I'm gonna order up some Goldies from Johnny's for this spring.
-Brian

Brian,

Thanks for the feedback. I do not think I can give a good response to Scott's question as I neglect my ground cherries and we also have a dry spell about the time they are maturing fruit. I get hit with fruit dropping about the time they size up.

Also, I checked through my stuff and found that I still have the uneaten bag of dried ground cherries from South America. I'd be happy to send a couple of these berries (maybe more depending on numbers) to anyone who sends me a SASBE (self addressed stamped bubble envelope). Use the smallest possible size. The berries are hard and relatively round, so they would not make it with just a regular envelope and I just do not have the time right now to extract dry and pack the seeds. These are labeled "Incan Berries" and "raw. sun-dried and unsprayed" and about 1/2" dried. There are lots of small seeds in each berry. I have not yet tried to germinate, so there would be some minor germination risk. However, since these were dried and untreated they should grow.

If interested, please d-mail me privately for my address and further discussion.