Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry (Physalis pruinosa) http://peeyi.notlong.com/ 2 June 2008 Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry (Physalis pruinosa) Three plants were grown in 2007, and the fruit was so good, that there are five plants this year. The seeds were started indoors on 8 March 2008. The black fabric is to prevent the fruit from falling in the dirt, since when ripe the berries fall off the plant.
Awesome - Durgan, have you tried Uchuva / Uvilla (Physalis peruviana)? Similar to P. pruinosa but I've always found them a little bit tarter, better for salads.
I have two plants of Physalis peruviana in the same bed. They grew slowly indoors, and appear less vigorous than the Physalis pruinosa. But the plants are healthy and the weather is finally warming, so I am hoping Physalis peruviana will thrive. The Physalis peruviana imported and sold in the Supermarket, are too tart. There is nothing tart about this berry when ripe, and I think being exposed to the berry in an unripe condition is not inducive to improving sales and consumption. One of the local restaurant's put one Physalis peruviana on the breakfast plate, and it looked like a duck, walked, like a duck, talked like a duck, but it was not a duck. Unfortunately, the berry has an almost identical appearance when ripe or unripe. When I have visitors, who has never eaten the berry, I don't offer them one until I know the patch is ripe. Nobody likes the slightly unripe berry.
Yeah, it's degrees of orange colour - the brighter the berry, the riper it is, until it's mooshy. I generally wait for them to fall off the bush, but a fully ripe berry on bush is normally held inside a wheat-coloured husk, whereas unripe ones are in green husks.
