North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[road's end farm <organic101@linkny.com>]

On Jul 8, 2006, at 9:16 AM, Jim Fruth wrote:

> I try to grow about 100 plants.

How on earth are you harvesting 100 plants of ground cherries? I grew half a dozen last year and found them very time consuming to harvest and to sort; if we scooped up everything that was under the plants they all had to be checked over as some were no good, which took forever; and it was hard getting everything out from under the very sprawly plants. Anything we missed added to the bad ones next time. (The instructions I had said to wait till they fell off the plant as unripe ones were emetic.)

After all that, they were next to impossible to sell. I did get some people to try a pint, and they did say they liked them; but not as much as other fruit, so almost nobody wanted more than about a pint a year as a curiosity. (This was pretty much my reaction too, whether raw or in a pie.) I didn't grow any this year.

I will say that they were heavy bearers. Variety was Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry from Seedsavers.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly