Ground Cherry Memories

[GoDawgs]

My e-mail inbox this morning had the daily post from The Blind Pig and The Acorn blog, one based in and about life in the Appalachians. The topic this morning was Ground Cherry Memories, recollections from people about their past experiences with these.

https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/ground-cherry-memories/

I've grown them a few times and like them. They sure are prolific and loaded with tiny seeds! There are few recipes out there for using them other than fresh eating but I did find a recipe for ground cherry jam once and made it. I sure was surprised the next morning when finding that overnight all those seeds had floated to the top making a 1/4" layer!

Have any of you grown them?

[DriftlessRoots]

“I guess the only thing I turn down is my shirt collar.”
Love that expression

My mother grew them when I was little and my sisters and grandma loved them but I think they were too weird for me to try. I did grow them once, in 2010, but not since and don’t recall doing much with them. Apart from jam* and pies they don’t seem to be very versatile. Maybe sweet sauces for pork or cocktail syrups? If I find more recipes maybe I’ll consider giving them a go again.


*We have literally enough jam in the freezer and pantry for at least two if not three years so no need for more of that!

[Gardadore]

I have been growing them off and on for several years with mixed results. The cucumber beetles love them and their larva totally decimate the plants. I need to start spraying them with something. Besides eating them off the plant I also make pies it small tarts if I can get enough. This year is a bomb so hope for better luck next year. Aunt Molly’s is a good variety. Fedco also had one called Loewen’s which was very good. This year they are offering a different cape gooseberry but I have had problems getting those to produce fruit. The plants get large. Maybe they need a poorer soil to produce.

[alicej]

I have tried to grow them a few times but failed which is frustrating because in my childhood they were spread by birds (I assume) and I would forage for them. We just called them gooseberries. I love them as a snack in the garden.

I have a distinct memory of them growing under the stairs of a dormitory at a summer camp I went to. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. How could they grow under there without proper sunlight and in terrible soil and not in my carefully prepared garden beds!

I have some seeds somewhere and should try again

[Setec Astronomy]

The cucumber beetles love them and their larva totally decimate the plants.

I don't know from cucumber beetles, but are you sure they aren't potato beetles? I get Three-lined potato beetles on my ground cherries, although I seem to have beat them back this year by killing the adults and smooshing the eggs. Plus I planted way late so I probably missed the first wave of beetles.

I love them as a snack in the garden.

I have a distinct memory of them growing under the stairs of a dormitory at a summer camp I went to. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. How could they grow under there without proper sunlight and in terrible soil and not in my carefully prepared garden beds!

My better half, who is a picky eater, was out to dinner with her son, and had something as a condiment with her meal, that she really liked. From her description, and with a lot of searching, I found that what she had eaten were Cape Gooseberries/ground cherries/husk cherries. I found a place to buy seedlings, and have been growing them ever since. She likes to put them in her salad, I like them more as a snack.

As far as them growing "without proper sunlight...", er...they are considered a weed or invasive species, I grow them on my deck in planters, but because they grow tall, and the fruit gets blown all over in windstorms, etc....I have them growing out of cracks in my driveway, out of soggy wood on my deck, in every other planter on the deck.

My main problem with them is the spider mites have been brutal on the ground cherries the last few years, I didn't even figure out I had spider mites until last year and have been meaning to post my saga in another thread, or is that another web?

[Moth1992]

I was literally looking into them today. Id like to try growing them next year. I tried some dipped in chocolate and OMG.

Sounds like they are more prone to pests though?

[GoDawgs]

I was literally looking into them today. Id like to try growing them next year. I tried some dipped in chocolate and OMG.
Sounds like they are more prone to pests though?

Maybe it's a geographic thing. I didn't have any pest problem at all the last time I grew them. Now that was a good while ago and maybe things have changed out there in the garden.

Hmmm, I see there's some 2016 Aunt Molly's seed in the freezer. I ought to start another one next year just to see if they germinate.

[Toomanymatoes]

They are quite tasty! I used some to make a groundcherry upside down cake (instead of pineapple). I have grown several different varieties, and they don't all taste the same (they are all of the same Physalis genus, but aren't all the same species). I still have a few new ones I need to grow and try.

Physalis pruinosa - Aunt Molly's, Cossack Pineapple
Physalis peruviana - Cape Gooseberry, Giant Groundcherry, Golden Berry, Poha, Peruvean Groundcherry, Franche Miniature (?)
Physalis grisea - Loewen Family Heirloom
Physalis angulata - Cutleaf
Physalis coztomatl - Coztomatl
Physalis ixocarpa - Confectioner, Zharinka, Purple Tomatillo
Physalis minima - Pygmy
Physalis pubescens - Yantar
Physalis viscosa - Starhair

There are many more. A lot of different common names for the same varieties as well.

[eyolf]

They generally came up every year in our garden when I was a kid.
Volunteers, like dill.

We ate them out-of-hand, and Mom canned them like canned tomatoes. We ate them like most other canned fruit in the cold months. What I learned later in life was that state health departments actively pushed rural folks to buy and use pressure canners 100 years ago, especially in northern states. Scurvy wasn't only known on pirate ships!

My parents born during the depression never knew any different.

Today, I encourage s few to self-seed in specific places and fight the squirrel and chipmunk for them. I have tried to save seeds fermenting them like tomatoes and starting them under lights only to find the ones volunteering between the onions laughing at me.

[GoDawgs]

All this talk of ground cherries has me wanting to grow another one next spring. Adding it to the 2014 grow list.....

[Setec Astronomy]

I have tried to save seeds fermenting them like tomatoes

I saved some Aunt Molly seeds one year--I'm not sure whether it was one that I accidentally stepped on, but I just put the crushed fruit in a dish and let it dry, and those seeds grew fine the following year, no fermenting.

[Mark_Thompson]

My two year old was scouring the garden the other day yelling, “Want pohas! Any more pohas?” So they’re certainly a crowd favorite over here. Luckily they’re a reliable volunteer.

[Shule]

Yes. I've grown them. Of the ones I've grown, I think Goldie tastes the sweetest. Ammon Martin's is probably the most prolific one I've grown. Aunt Molly's is pretty good and similar to the other two. Cape gooseberries are another species of ground cherry altogether, but if you have a long enough season, they can be pretty tasty. Chinese Lantern Gigantea is supposed to be pretty invasive (and it's a perennial with red fruit), but it's a struggle to get it to survive in my garden (it's never gotten fruit for me); it must be adapted to somewhere else.

All in all, if I were purchasing ground cherry seeds, I would get Goldie. I think the volunteers in my garden are Aunt Molly's.

I've just eaten them fresh.

Ground cherries can be prone to spider mites. The volunteers tend to get bigger than the ones I plant in my garden. They volunteer easily.

[Moth1992]

I got a volunteer gifted!

Now, looking at youtube videos it looks like its a sprawly plant that grows low to the ground. I want to put it in my garden plot but i dont know how much space it needs. Would a 2ft x 2 ft space be enough?

[eyolf]

My daughter grows one or two in a hanging basket. Her city yard possesses a clothesline, which gets used as a trellis, and plants (and sometimes clothes!) hang from it. They don't get quite as rampant, but picking/snacking is a breeze, and the critters are less trouble.

[GoDawgs]

I got a volunteer gifted!

Now, looking at youtube videos it looks like its a sprawly plant that grows low to the ground. I want to put it in my garden plot but i don't know how much space it needs. Would a 2ft x 2 ft space be enough?

If I remember right, mine got about 4' x 4'. Yep, I just found a photo from 2016 on a different forum . It's the first time I grew one and it was 'Aunt Molly's Groundcherry'. It's as wide as the bed which is 4' and it's about that long too. My comments on that post was:

I grew four this spring from seed (tiny seed!) and as they are open pollinated plants, they’re all different. One is getting large and rangy, one is really compact and two are in between. Each one is in somewhat different growing conditions varying in sun exposure and soil type. Three are in the ground and one is in a pot.

Here’s the big one in the pepper row. It’s about to overwhelm the eggplant on one side and pepper on the other and running over the carrots as I had no clue how large it was going to get. It’s centered between the two stakes.

[Moth1992]

Hmmmm maybe i can put it in a tomato cage