A Rose By Any Other Name Would Still Be A Physalis

Groundcherry, wintercherry, Cape gooseberry, poha. Physalis. An orange-yellow fruit in a charming paper husk which has nothing to do with cherries or gooseberries. It's more closely related to tomatoes (though sweet and tangy rather than savory) and needs similar conditions (and suffers from similar problems) to grow. And it's my wild card. That one crazy plant you are pretty sure won't grow for you, will probably curl its toes up and die before it has even gotten started, but you try anyway. Because if it does work...

It needs warmer conditions than I will probably be able to give it and even with my walk-in plastic greenhouse, the summer may still be too short for it to produce mature fruit. But I love them. I like them raw as a snack or in fruit salads and they are apparently nice cooked in pies or jammed. I didn't buy the seed, but instead saved it from some physalis I bought at ASDA. I don't usually save seed from store-bought fruit and vegetables as most are F1 hybrids (the offspring of two genetically different parents whose seed will NOT produce true-to-type. F1 Hybrids), but a very cursory google search seemed to imply that this wouldn't make a difference with physalis. So I happily munched through a bag and saved a few seeds. A couple of weeks ago I planted five seeds into a pot (peat-free MPC with vermiculite) and placed that into a sealed plastic bag. Five seeds germinated and so far five little plants are growing.

I'm feeling lucky this year. This could be the year my wild card pays off.

What's your wild card for this growing season?