Ground Cherries, tomato relative?

[ABlindHog]

Bought some seeds I know nothing about this year, one of them is Ground Cherries. The seller, Baker Creek calls them strawberry husk tomatoes and suggests growing them the same as you would tomatoes. I grow tomatoes in the spring that start out in the cold but live in fierce heat by the time production gets going. I also grow a crop in the fall, that start out in fierce heat but ripen in much more moderate conditions. Which tomato to grow in which season has been a matter of trial and error that I would like to avoid with ground cherries. I'm hoping some one here has some experience with them and can advise me as to when to start, and how many plants to grow to get enough fruit for a few jars of jelly, and maybe a couple of pies.

[joseph]

Ground Cherries are more closely related to tomatillos than to tomatoes. They are more cold tolerant, so I typically put them out a few weeks before tomatoes. Other than that, I grow them similar to tomatoes. The fruits taste best to me after they fall off the plant, so it helps with harvest to have plain ground under them.

[adewilliams]

I grew some last year for the first time. They proved to be very hardy and I noticed they were great self sowers. The variety I grew was Cossack Pineapple and it was slightly sweet and delicious. I set mine out with my tomatoes and they did well to a point. I noticed that at some point the blooms formed and even created the little balloons, but the fruit didn't set. It might have been the heat, since Joseph mentioned they were cold tolerant. Otherwise, they didn't need a lot of maintenance. Good luck and have fun! I would love to hear how they do.

[HudsonValley]

I grew Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry -- three plants. They yielded enough for a lot of snacking, plus five jars of jam (had to freeze the fruit until I had enough for a batch). Relative to tomato plants, ground cherries might not offer the most bang for your buck, since the fruit are so small, but I found them to be interesting, velvety-textured, beautiful plants! I'll definitely grow them again in coming years.

[HudsonValley]

P.S. - Don't eat the underripe green ones.

[Gardeneer]

I noticed that at some point the blooms formed and even created the little balloons

That is what tomatillo does. The fruits grow inside that baloon/husk.
But tomatillo that I have grown is always tangy.
And , yeas when fully ripe, fall off the plant but never get mushy like over ripe tomato.

[FarmerShawn]

Picked (up) when ripe and kept dry and cool, maybe dark, ground cherries will keep for a couple of months. The plants do like to sprawl, growing out rather than up, so give 'em plenty of space. I love 'em!


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Ground cherries are awesome. I grew Aunt Molly's in 2015, as well as a kind from Burgess (but I planted that kind in the shade in tough soil and had crop failure). In 2016, I grew these:

* Aunt Molly's (again)
* Yellow Husk
* Ammon Martin's
* Chinese Lantern Gigantea (I didn't get any fruit)
* Cape Gooseberry (Giant)
* Goldie

First of all, I'll tell you about the size and taste. Ammon Martin's had the largest fruit. Goldie had the smallest. Goldie had the sweetest taste, followed by Ammon Martin's. Cape Gooseberry looked the coolest, and had the most unique, strongest taste. Yellow Husk had by far the least sweetness in taste.

Ammon Martin's was the most productive.

All the plants except Cape Gooseberry and Chinese Lantern Gigantea looked approximately the same.

Cape Gooseberry looked really awesome with big furry leaves (tall plants). It was very vigorous outdoors (but I tried starting it indoors in 2015, but it caught an indoor fungal disease or something; starting it in a greenhouse instead worked very well for me). The fruit looks nice. It's golden-colored with a nice skin texture, and it is opaque, unlike the other ground cherries, which were translucent and/or transparent to some degree.

Chinese Lantern Gigantea was the latest for me (I didn't get any fruit or flowers), but it is a perennial (so, hopefully it'll grow back in 2017).

The frost seemed to kill the foliage and branches of all the plants except for Cape Gooseberry, which survived until it got pretty cold.

Ground cherries seem to get a whole lot bigger (and seem to be more productive) in full sun in the ground than they do in a raised bed in partial shade.

Planting ground cherries early gives you a lot of benefits over planting them late, it seems. I recommend not procrastinating transplanting them at all.

Ground cherries seem to be prone to spider mites (while my tomatoes didn't have issues). However, those I've grown from saved seeds have resisted them better than ones directly from store-bought seeds. Cape Gooseberry didn't seem bothered with spider mites outdoors at all (but the one I started indoors that died from fungal issues may have been susceptible to indoor spider mites).

Ground cherries are more likely to fruit indoors than tomatoes, it seems.

Most of the ground cherry breeds I've tried usually taste something like a gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa). Ironically, the Cape Gooseberry didn't (it had an unusual taste that startled me). The other ground cherries do have variable tastes (one day, they might taste like one fruit, and another day another).

Ground cherries are often known for tasting like pineapple, strawberries, or perhaps other fruits. I can see this with some of them I've tasted, but usually they taste like gooseberries to me.

Ground cherries do tend to be pretty small. You need to wait until they fall off the plant to harvest them. However, I've found that there's no rush to pick them up. You can usually leave them there until a good amount of them accumulate if you want a larger amount of them at a time.

Most ground cherries are kind of round or oval-shaped. However, I had one that was a cone-shape (like a Christmas tree shape). I think some tomatillos have a gene for that shape, too (but it's not as obvious).

Most ground cherries people grow for food are pretty easy to start from seeds. I think Chinese Lantern Gigantea is harder, though (it was for me). Cape Gooseberry isn't quite as easy, but certainly doable.

Ground cherries seem to tolerate heat just fine (perhaps better than many tomatoes). However, you'll probably want to make sure the pH isn't too high and that there's some organic matter in the soil. I grew some in 2015 in ground with amendments that should have raised the pH a lot, with no added organic matter, and they struggled, got infested with spider mites, and remained small (although I did get fruit).

Oh, and just for the record, Ammon Martin's does not seem to be the same as the Clammy ground cherry. It looks a lot more like Aunt Molly's and Goldie than the Clammy ground cherry. The place I got Yellow Husk claimed it was the same species as the Cape Gooseberry—not the same breed—but it looks totally different (it looked much more like Aunt Molly's and Goldie than the Cape Gooseberry).

I plan to regrow all the breeds except maybe Yellow Husk in 2017. I plan to grow the Pineapple Tomatillo (which is really a ground cherry) and Otto's Brush Creek, in 2017, too.

I wonder if any of mine will have crossed with each other.

[Hatgirl]

Here in the UK/Ireland we call them Physalis. They're often perched decoratively on top of a slice of cake in restaurants.

[Gardeneer]

@ Shule 1.
Chinese lantern grows a tiny fruit smaller than a pea. It is just ornamental.
Also it is perennial and very invasive. It multiplies from roots.

@Gardeneer

I could be wrong, but I think the Gigantea version is supposed to have bigger fruits than the normal breed of Chinese Lantern (the plant itself wasn't very large for me, anyhow: it was my smallest ground cherry plant). (It's said to be edible when fully ripe, and high in vitamin C. Whatever the case, even pea sized fruits can potentially have good herbal and nutritional properties, and bigger, tastier fruits might be bred over generations.) I'm not sure if the fruits ever fall off the vine like other ground cherries or not (so, I don't know when it's ripe).

However, the Giant Cape Gooseberry has giant (tall) plants, but the fruits are about normal size for a ground cherry, in my experience.

While I'm on the topic of nutrition, I hear Cape Gooseberries are a plant source of vitamin D (maybe not lots of it, but that's still pretty cool).

It should be noted that Goldberries are said to be the same species as the Cape Gooseberry. I've eaten lots of those dried. They taste kind of like prunes to me.

I think the Chinese Lantern Gigantea I grew in 2016 needs more acclimatization to my area before it can be invasive. It didn't thrive. However, I've heard of native versions of the plant that are said to be quite invasive. I'd like to find some of those and check them out.

I'm not sure mine will grow back next year since all but the container one were smothered by other plants, and the container filled up with water at the end of the season. So, unless it's aquatic or survives severe smothering, I might have to regrow it.

I did check out the roots of my Chinese Lantern Gigantea plants at transplant time. They're pretty cool-looking.

[ABlindHog]

Thank you all for the great responses.

Do any of you cage these plants or prune them as you might prune a tomato?

Shule, what was your source for Ammon Martin"s?

Any experience with ground cherries with lots of deer present?

Any favorite recipes?

Originally Posted by ABlindHog

Thank you all for the great responses.

Do any of you cage these plants or prune them as you might prune a tomato?

Shule, what was your source for Ammon Martin"s?

Any experience with ground cherries with lots of deer present?

Any favorite recipes?

I think it's possibly against the rules to tell you my source since the store has a not so good reputation on TV (due to rebranding tomatoes or something), but I can just give you some seeds if you want some.

I've never seen a deer in our backyard. Our primary mammalian garden pest is the domestic cat, so far. (They like to sit or sleep on herbs/flowers, dig and fill in holes where I may or may not have rows or seeds, and distract me while I'm trying to work. They might spray certain plants, too, but I'm not sure. Keeping the ground wet helps them not to dig holes as often. They didn't bother my ground cherries.) We did have a raccoon eating our sour cherries once, though, but they needed to be eaten anyway, and they had worms in them.

I doubt if deer would bother the ground cherries, due to toxins in the leaves, stems and husks (the husks are toxic), but you never know. Maybe deer are immune, or something. I guess it doesn't stop spider mites.

For recipes, I don't have any on mind offhand. I hear they go nicely in pie. However, they're great frozen. They keep their flavor that way and make a cool treat. I'm sure someone has recipes.

I haven't caged any ground cherries, yet. They can get big enough to cage, though (but it depends on the growing conditions, the soil, and how early you plant, perhaps). I'm not sure about pruning them. I don't think I've tried it.

[Hatgirl]

As long as you keep them in their papery husk, you can keep them at room temperature for months and they still remain fresh.

[NarnianGarden]

I love them, but the spider mites invasion just is too much. The same with eggplant and cucumbers - lovely, but too much hassle. and the spray that is strong enough is not recommended for edible plants, although organic..!