Ground Cherry vs. Golden Berry, Lessons Learned

Join me for a brief comparison of native and non-native Physalis and the lessons we have learned growing these species in North Carolina.
themulberries.org/

[@truthseeker1364]

I noticed the same thing they stopped producing flowers I was able to get a berry and it was pretty good. I've been watching your cold hardy citrus videos and I'm excited for your work. I too have a nice collection I'm here in Maryland

[@themulberries]

@@truthseeker1364 Thank you for watching! I'm hoping to select a more heat resistant strain amongst all these plants (I have one so far that is still producing fruit this time of year), and grow the seeds. The fruit that are ripening and dodged the bugs do taste really good! That's awesome you have a collection in Maryland, it's always cool to hear people are growing in areas further up than here. I hope we can cultivate a new variety worth putting in your collection!

[@emilysp722]

I just returned from Peru where I ate a lot of aguaymanto, golden berry. I love them so much and ate and drink all things aguaymanto! I do grow ground cherries and love them in a tomatillo salsa. I'd love to try the maracuya, passion fruit here in CT. I look forward to seeing the outcome of your grafted plant!

[@themulberries]

@@emilysp722 That sounds great! It's very likely you can grow Maypop/Purple Passionflower in CT. Supposedly they can survive in zones 5/6 if they are protected with mulch during the Winter.

[@raregrowsNJ]

Agree with your description of the ground cherry flavor profile. Not a big fan of it fresh, haven't tried processing it though. I planted golden berry seeds from the grocery store fruit one year, under my persimmon tree so it wasn't constantly blasted by the heat. Aside from the potato beatles attacking the leaves, the fruit was actually able to ripen and it was pretty good! This was a couple of years ago and I haven't tried planting it again but this spring I found a sprout of one of the remnants of one of the plants coming out from under the mulch so one of them appears to be root hardy probably ground cherry. Good to see Purple Boots is growing well for you, defintely give it some nitrogen to get those leaves to greenup. Hopefully you will see some flowers, my main plant is budding at the moment

[@themulberries]

@@raregrowsNJ Thank you! I gave it a good feed so it should be looking good in no time. Which ground cherry did you try? I may try the golden berries in more shade next year, I just have to create some since we have almost too much sun in this open field! I really like their taste so I want to succeed with them or a ground cherry that tastes very similar.

[@raregrowsNJ]

@@themulberries they were seeds of an "heirloom variety" from a seed store on ebay, there are so many species named groundcherry. based on what grew I doubt that what I recieved was the actual species advertised. I found the fruit to have a strange, umami-tomato flavor, with a hint of caramel. Not a fan lol. The grocery store "Sunbelle Golden Berries" brand is tons better, pineapple-citrus and tropical tasting without tomato flavor. They are grown in South America, I think Colombia

[@themulberries]

@@raregrowsNJ Very interesting, and yes that tropical flavor is what makes them so great! I wish I could get that flavor on the level of production of our cutleaf ground cherry.

[@novastar369]

My ground cherrys where not doing much till i covered them with window screen and now they have exploded in size. They where having a lot of sun stress i believe. Now they are growing out from underneath the screen

[@themulberries]

@@novastar369 They definitely benefit from partial shade. I think ours would be much more productive/healthy if we had a long shade cloth over them. We're hoping in Fall they will resume producing berries, and so far our graft onto the native ground cherry worked great so we'll see if that helps at all.

[@novastar369]

I grew ground cherries from trader Joe's 😂 mine are just getting going but still quite small because of a late start.

[@themulberries]

@@novastar369 Ours are from Trader Joe's seed too!

[@SecondMileDIY]

Where are you located? I’m in 7A in Oklahoma. My big ground cherry problem this year has been ants getting into the husk before they are ripe. But I have so many plants, I’m still getting quite a harvest every single day! You must live close to an airport like I do! I often have to compete with the airplanes in my videos too! It’s kinda awesome to hear that familiar sound in someone else’s videos!

[@themulberries]

@@SecondMileDIY Haha, you understand our struggle! I'm glad we have access to this land but gosh there's a plane every few minutes! Same here though, now that more fruit have ripened, we're picking several pints a week from almost 50 plants. The bugs definitely like them, our main problem besides production in the heat has been caterpillars eating them. We have one grafted on Physalis angulata that is growing great so I'm curious to see how it performs out here.

[@SecondMileDIY]

@@themulberries yes! Same here with the planes every few minutes. I used to not notice them because I’ve lived here my entire life. But when my fiance’ first started coming to visit, he was fascinated by the planes, lol. Then when editing videos of course, I notice them loud and clear now!

[@mena2138]

what spacing between seeds in the citrus beds? i see them pretty close I like that.

[@themulberries]

They are planted at a very high density, spacing is probably 1/4 inch or so. Once they grow larger/at the end of the season they will be separated into tree pots until they are sold.

[@novastar369]

I have a purple possum passion fruit growing and they are almost 5 to 6 feet tall. When i got them in February they had 3 to 6 leaves growing out of the cutting. I wonder if you would want to trade one of them....

[@themulberries]

@@novastar369 That's awesome! We have 'Purple Boots', similar to 'Purple Possum', it's a seedling variety from raregrowsNJ. It's not quite as big, but maybe 3-4 feet now and sure is growing fast. What were you looking for?

[@novastar369]

Wow I wasn't expecting an answer 😂 well I have polyambryonic citrus seedlings but I don't have any cold hardly one's. I could graft them onto better rootstocks maybe but I'm also kinda wanting to grow them in a large greenhouse eventually because I have avocados and mangos as well besides my starfruit trees and guava trees and a mamey sapote. All from seed. But easier care citrus would be better. Haha

[@themulberries]

@@novastar369 We've got tons of cold hardy citrus seedlings at the moment, and we're going to have trees/cuttings too going into the Fall. Sounds like a fun project, good luck!

[@novastar369]

​@@themulberriesare you open to the public? Or do you only ship plants?

[@themulberries]

@@novastar369 We only ship plants, but maybe sometime in the future we will be open to the public. We do occasional pop-up stands here in NC.