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Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-228
Cape Gooseberry
Physalis peruviana
Cape Gooseberry is a golden husk berry from the Peruvian Andes, eaten fresh, dried like a raisin, or cooked into jam and pies - unusually high in protein and phosphorus for a fruit, along with vitamins A, C and B-complex, and with a bittersweet flavor. Picked with the papery husk intact, it keeps up to three months in storage, by far the longest-keeping fruit among its garden relatives, which usually want eating within days. It fruits through and past a hot, humid summer rather than quitting in early summer, though its highland origin means fruit set slows during the hottest weeks and picks back up as nights cool. As with its close relatives, every part of the plant except the ripe fruit is poisonous, including the husk, which must be discarded before eating.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 8–10
- Soil
- Loam
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 12–36 in
- Mature spread
- 12–24 in
- Plant spacing
- 24–36 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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