Round, strikingly orange-yellow and wrapped in a natural straw-like covering, physalis (or, more correctly, Andean berries or Cape gooseberries) are available in supermarkets almost all year round. The plants have also been increasingly cultivated in German gardens for a number of years, after all they are easy to care for and produce lots of delicious, healthy fruit. But when can you actually harvest the berries? Here are our tips on the topic.
Physalis are often dried after harvest
Physalis ripen late in Germany
If you also want to grow physalis, then you should sow the plants very early in the year - in March at the latest. The shrub does not bear fruit until three to four months after sowing - this means that even with this early sowing, you can only harvest in August, but more likely in September. The Physalis comes from the subtropics and is therefore used to a much longer growing season than is usual in Central Europe. You can count on approx. 300 fruits per plant, assuming appropriate care.
How do I recognize ripe Physalis?
You can recognize immature physalis by the fact that they are more or less green. On the other hand, the berries are ripe when
- the shell dries up and turns brown
- it then feels a little like dry paper
- and becomes more crumbly the riper the fruit is
- the berry itself turns a strong orange-yellow or orange-red
Physalis should be eaten as ripe as possible. On the one hand, unripe berries are not particularly tasty, on the other hand, if you eat too much of them, they can lead to symptoms of poisoning. Incidentally, in contrast to the other Physalis species, you can also harvest the fruits of the tomatillo green and process them like vegetables.
How are physalis harvested?
Many a gardener swears that physalis are only ripe when they fall off the bush alone. But you have to like that. Instead, you can simply test a piece of fruit to see whether it is actually already ripe. The case provides good information in the assessment, and the strong color shimmers through. If the berries are ripe, you can simply pick them off. You should remove the casing before eating, but washing off the sticky layer is not essential. Fruits that are harvested unripe do not ripen.
Some suggestions for further processing
If you're out of ideas on what to do with your physalis crop, here are a few suggestions:
- Cook Marmelade
- Cook fruit sauces or chutneys
- Freeze or dry ripe fruit
- conjure up a delicious physalis ice cream with sugar, honey and cream
tips
Even in the cool winter quarters, green fruits often continue to ripen, so that you can also fall back on physalis fresh from the bush in the cold season. Incidentally, the berries of the Chinese lantern flower, which is widespread in this country, are confusingly similar to a commercially available physalis, but are still poisonous.