We had two plants last year. It wasn't enough! :)

kristin

My one question is how do I tell when they are ready to be harvested? Are they similar to tomatillos in that the fruit will fill out the husk? When I ate a few off the plant a few weeks ago they were small in the husk and quite tart. (sadly, I've been away from the garden since) Is this the norm?

Many thanks,
-bex

The flavor is quite pleasant, especially if allowed to ripen within the husk for several weeks after harvest. But consumption of large amounts of the raw fruit is unhealthy, and is not recommended.

The immature fruits contain potentially fatal amounts of solanine & related alkaloids; I can only assume that some small amount remains in the ripe fruit.

Solanine is the same substance that makes potatoes toxic when they turn green.

In your climate zone, I am surprised that direct-seeding failed. Perhaps you will have to start them in pots initially (I did) to "air prune" the taproot. There is a wild ground cherry that grows even here in Wisconsin, so they should volunteer in your garden once they seed.

It turns out I am getting 9 plants (5 I ordered from SSE and 4 from my friend. I ordered them from SSE as a backup in case hers failed, at her request. She now has 6 seedlings and is going to give me 4).

Nine of these very productive plants!!!!! I think I will be canning these and drying them, and possibly cooking with them too :D

Btw dont eat them when there still green! Ground Cherry are toxic when their not ripe. Becuase they are part of the NightShade family.

Yeah thanks and if you look at my other post, I started these around April 8th,(the last time I posted in this thread).

They really are not growing too fast. Hopefully they'll pick up in July. I may of put them out too early.

(Because of their similarity, I decided to plant some tomatillos this year. Doing very well so far. Thank you to manchester-sara for letting me know the two won't cross.)

How many could kill a human?

As for this being a slow-growing plant, I think it all depends on soil quality and environment. Yeah, it'll grow in most soils, but one Aunt Molly's that I transplanted pretty late (some time in June) grew faster than anything I've ever seen before, even with my chilly microclimate, only 4-6 hours of full sun, and this spring/summer being as record-breakingly cold here in the southern gulf islands of BC. Mind you, this one ground cherry has all to itself a mound of 250+ gallons of incredibly eniched soil that was originally meant for experimenting with a monster tomato plant-- but then the deer jumped my fence and destroyed everything except the lemon verbena and my ground cherries (which is a real testament to how poisonous ground cherry plants are, since these deer happily eat entire tomato, pepper, squash, even yarrow plants without thinking twice. The lemon verbena is simply too annoyingly fragrant for them to bother). After the heartbreak of a decimated garden, I let a ground cherry start that I was growing in a 1 gallon pot take over that space, and in three months it went from being one foot tall to exploding to six feet tall and 6-7 feet wide, completely covered in at least 150 blossoms and husks! The amended soil must've been the reason for this, because I barely had to water it during the summer droughts, maybe once every week or two-- if that. I will take a picture of this lovely plant and post it here in the next week or two. I wish I transplanted it earlier, since these husks do take forever to ripen with these cold nights and mornings.

For those who have experience:

Seed packet says germination in 28-35 days at 77-85 degrees. Does it really take so very long?

Also - my pack says "determinate" - I had thought they were like tomatillos - just bearing fruit until frost. Is it one crop and done? Any benefit to succession planting?

I was planning on planting with my tomatilloes - however - in reading about the toxicity, perhaps they should be separated? My purple tomatilloes were a little too sweet when making salsa verde, so we began to harvest them while still green, and worried I might confuse them if the bushes get tangled - now the tomatilloes - any toxicity there with unripe fruit? Can you easily distinguish ground cherry from tomatillo by husk?

Also - some of the earlier posters mentioned trying pineapple ground cherries - how did that work out? How was the taste vis a vis Aunt Molly?

TIA!!!

I am planting the Cossack Pineapple, purchased from Southern Exposure. No idea if these are determinate or not, maybe I should email Southern Exposure.

Neither of those types seemed "determinate" to me! I kept meaning to take a picture of the gigantic shrubs they turned out to be in my garden the summer before last. They really did need staking, or the tomato-plant-like branches would split at the base of the plant. Not that that killed them, oh no. They were a good seven feet tall, and approximately six feet wide - even with trying to support them.

I'd say the flavor is like a very, very sweet tomato. Pineapple was sweeter than Aunt Molly's, but both are extremely sweet, in a rich tomato-ey way. I've never had ground cherries have husks that are as big as the tomatillos I've grown.

Tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries all like the same conditions. Tomatoes can self-sow, but they don't show up early enough the next year to produce fruit. GROUND CHERRIES DO.