Ground cherry surprise Update

[Rosalind]

I guess ground cherries grow wild? I failed to weed-whack diligently enough along the side of our rock wall. A big leafy green thing grew there amongst the grass and bishop weed. It developed little paper lantern type of things, and as it so happens it turns out to be ground cherry.

I never grew these things before. Ate them in preserves, yes, never grew one. Any ideas on how to save seeds for next year? Will they self-seed? Do seeds need chilled or frozen to germinate? When might I expect the fruits to turn yellow? They are still green now.

Apparently the environment they like is in gravel with leaf mold mulch, half crowded to death by bishop weed, partly shaded by a maple tree. "Tolerates poor soil" ain't the half of it--the dogs peed on the bush one day and it was fine. Same dogs have created giant brown swaths of death in the lawn, yet the ground cherry didn't mind a bit.

 

[HiDelight]

be careful there is a look a like to a ground cherry but it smells kind of awful and it is poisonous and called a
Solanum physalifolium (I think I could not remember a latin name so I googled...ground-cherry nightshade the only name I know) anyway it does not smell fruity at all it smells like feet when you squish it

 

[vfem]

ewwwww.... squish it and see!!!!

 

[patandchickens]

What HiDelight said -- you probably already know this, but given that there are SO many significantly-poisonous members of the Solanaceae that have vaguely similar fruits, you wanna be REAL SURE of your taxonomic assignments before you go eating anything.

If it *is* ground cherry, they make good pies. AFAIK you save the seeds the same as a tomato, with or without fermenting depending how ambitious you are. AFAIK they need no pre-chilling. This is the first year I've grown ground cherries myself, and they are taking an unconscionably long time to ripen past the green stage, so yours have good company

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Rosalind]

Too early to tell, maybe? I squished two little berries. They just smelled unripe and green and faintly like dog pee. I surfed teh intarwebz a while and it seems they normally ripen in September-ish?

 

[HiDelight]

Too early to tell, maybe? I squished two little berries. They just smelled unripe and green and faintly like dog pee. I surfed teh intarwebz a while and it seems they normally ripen in September-ish?

I would love to see a picture

although honestly the poisonous ones look really close to the non poisonous ones ..

they should smell like fruit! ..there is a real distinction between the poisonous and non poisonous ones by smell

the dog pee smell is kind of making me wonder what you got!!! LOL!!!!

when it comes to eating wild mushrooms and plants I thought it was good practice to find what kills you first ....then second the ones that make you wish you were dead ..then NEVER EAT THOSE!!!!

after that it is all uphill..so if this is the poisonous one then you are actually lucky to ID it now get it out of the way and then when you find a real ground cherry you will be so much the safer

I know my logic is twisted but it has worked so far!

 

[insiderart]

I would never eat a solanacea that I did not 100% know the identity.

 

[theOEGBman]

I would never eat anything that smelled like dog pee.

 

[HiDelight]

so I am curious now what did you figure out about this? can you show us a picture?

 

[Rosalind]

Well, hot damn. I finally found a semi-ripe one to scratch-n-sniff. Smells very much like strawberries with a hint of peach. Definitely not feet! And since the dogs have been peeing on my rosebushes instead it no longer smells of dog pee at all in any way whatsoever.

Looks like I hit the ground cherry jackpot! Woo-hoo! Now, what to do with what will shortly be at least a gallon of the things in a week or two...