Garden Update

Our garden has been growing like crazy.  It was very well cared for while we were on vacation (thanks Mom!).   Before we left, we had a lot of produce to give away since we wouldn’t be around to eat it. Giant things like this:

Yes that’s a full-size gargantuan watermelon next to it.   Yes it’s significantly longer than the watermelon.  I forgot to pick the garden two days in a row and that was the consequence.  We’ve also been drowning in green beans and tomatoes - I love it.

Has anyone else ever heard of ground cherries before?  I hadn’t until this past winter when I got a free packet of ground cherry seeds with purchase.  I was excited to grow them just to try the fruit and see what they were like.   I started two seedlings indoors, but only one survived.  Once outside the little seedling took off into a mini tree of sorts with lots of little paper lanterns all over it that sort of look like tomatillos.

Ground cherries turn yellow when ripe and the little lantern turns very thin and papery.

Inside is a little yellow fruit.

The flavor is interesting.   They sort of taste like sweet cherry tomatoes with a twist that’s been described as a “strawberry like flavor” - though I wouldn’t describe it that way.  Mike thinks they taste like “slightly sweet alcoholic cherry tomatoes.”   I love trying new things and I’m glad we grew it, but I don’t know if I’d do it again.   The bush is very prolific and since it’s not something I want to eat by the handful, I think next year we’ll save our precious limited garden space for something else.