This weeks' featured plant is called the Aunt Molly Ground Cherry, Latin name Physalis Pruinosa. Ground Cherries are totally new to me. I stumbled upon them while reading garden blogs about tomatillos and when I learned that they were sort of a berry, and they were annuals, I was intrigued. Most of the berries I know of are perennials and you don't usually get much or any fruit the first year. I've been wanting to try blackberries or raspberries, but they take a few years to start producing and they require a more permanent home than I'm willing to give them at this point.
Ground cherries, on the other hand, grow from seed and produce fruit all in one year. They are a member of the nightshade family, similar to a tomato. The fruits grow in a husk which hangs from the plant and looks a bit like a Chinese lantern. The plant blooms, and the calyx (green leafy part at the base of the bloom) grows and closes up to form a little pouch of sorts which grows to be the husk. The fruit grows into a little marble sized berry inside of the husk and falls to the ground when ripe, thus the name. When ripe, the fruits are a golden color and have many tiny seeds inside.
The plants are known by many names (with slight variances between varieties, although I get conflicting information as to what the differences in taste are) such a Cape Gooseberry, Pahoa, Inca Berry, and Golden Berry. Anyone who is asked what the fruit tastes like will likely give a different answer. I've heard of them being compared to pineapple, strawberry, mango, vanilla, custard, lime (sounds like this person's weren't ripe enough), with a hint of tomato flavor. I can't really imagine any of these flavors being bad, so I'm ridiculously excited to try them out! The three plants that I am growing this year have a particularly interesting/pathetic story behind them, but I'll save that for another post. :)
At least the lettuce (which needs thinning) in front of the bs will have some shade as the weather gets warmer. In front of the peas, our pumpkin is just sprouting. We'll let him spill out of the bed and crawl all over the lawn (hubby isn't crazy about that idea haha). Sunflowers and empty boxes to the left of the bs waiting to be planted (if there is any room as the bs fill in!).
Just wanted to show I built two smaller 2x4 table tops for some more vining crops and herbs. We are putting up a fence in a few weeks and I'm not sure how I'll want my garden layed out next year so rather than kill the grass under some beds that might be moved next season, we did tabletops so the only grass killed is under the legs. Anyhow, I have seeds in for cantaloupe and watermelon in one and acorn and butternut squash in the other. They'll both have trellises soon to climb up. In front of those crops I put in some chives, shallots, and a few types of bush beans. I'm thinking about painting all my boxes white so they look clean and uniform. The wood we used is a little rough looking, but it was cheap and serves it's purpose.
