Tony Dickerson answers your questions
How do you grow Cape gooseberries?
QI want to grow Cape gooseberries. Can you tell me how, please?
Ray Gille , Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
AThe Cape gooseberry ( Physalis peruviana) is related to the ornamental Chinese lantern ( Physalis alkekengi), which is grown for its scarlet berries encased in bright orange-red lanterns. In common with most members of the Solanaceae family, all parts of Chinese lanterns are toxic, whereas the Cape gooseberry produces sweet, tangy, edible fruit. It originates from Peru, but is naturalised in other parts of the world, including South Africa, from where it gets its common name.
You grow Cape gooseberries much like tomatoes, but they don’t suffer from blight. Suitable for a polytunnel, greenhouse or a warm, sunny, sheltered spot outdoors, plants can reach between 1-2m (3¼ft-6½ft) and need to be spaced at least 1m (3¼ft) apart and tied into a stout stake. They’re grown as a bush and don’t need training, but can be kept compact by pinching back longer shoots.
Sow like tomatoes and pot up seedlings to grow on. Put outdoor plants out straight after the last frost because they’re frost-sensitive but need a long season to crop successfully. Flowers are only produced after eight to 10 leaves have formed on a shoot, so they fruit late.
Keep plants well watered, and feed fortnightly with a tomato fertiliser once fruit starts to form. Don’t feed until this point because excessive fertility only encourages lush growth. In containers plants tend to crop earlier on smaller plants.
As with tomatoes, shaking the flowers occasionally aids pollination. Fruits take 70-80 days to mature and, when ripe, they turn orange-yellow within a straw-coloured papery husk and drop from the plant. It’s best to leave the fruit to ripen on the plant, but be aware any unripe fruit can be poisonous.
You can overwinter plants under cover and cut them back hard in spring. They may remain productive for three or four years before insect-spread virus is likely to take its toll.