Cape Gooseberries
We love Cape Gooseberries! The little paper cases, hunting in the branches for yellow ones, opening them up to get the little sweet but tart berries out!
Physalis peruviana is a plant species of the genus Physalis. It is originally from Peru. The plant and its fruit is known as many different names all over the world. It’s closely related to the tomatillo and Chinese lantern. As a member of the plant family Solanaceae, it is more distantly related to a large number of edible plants, including tomato, eggplant, potato and other members of the nightshades.
The plant looks cool, it’s pretty hardy, the fruit come in like wee natures own protective cases which show you when the fruit inside them is ripe by turning yellow and papery. The fruit they produce grows in single small cases or caylx spaced along the branches, ripening from the ones closest to the base of the plant outwards.
Seedlings, branch showing growth, and a collection of ripe berries… This shows most of the stages of the life cycle of this very cool plant, the Cape Gooseberry.
When ripe, you peel back the cases to reveal the yellow berry. It is small, contains a lot of small seeds and is sweet but has a mild tang to it also.
The cases left to the side, fruit consumed & cast away or otherwise fallen off the plant, leave this awesome wee skeleton of a case that is very cool in itself!
Apparently there is some evidence that the fruit is good for anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of the berries… Something about its constituents, such as polyphenols and/or carotenoids. They also contain Vitamins A, C & B, and are high in protein and rich in iron.
We generally snack on them straight off the plant but I hear they are also good in jams, pies, cut up into salads or dipped in chocolate! The plants themselves are fairly hardy in an Auckland environment if they are given a fairly sheltered position. They self seed easily and although they are only biannual plants, a decent bush will self propagate into a little batch for you which can be rather productive!
Our big Cape Gooseberry patch is currently contained used upcycled dodgy old drying frames to keep it staked up and off the path haha
There is lots more great information to be found here about growing Cape Gooseberries in New Zealand gardens from Incredible Edible’s – www.edibles.co.nz
This shows a branch of the Cape Gooseberry which has unripe fruit growing along the length of it. The ripe fruit, in the papery cases at the bottom, are from a different branch.
We have plenty of seedlings available of these in a variety of sizes and prices at the moment, starting from $6.
See this and our other listing’s on our online store here.
