Unexpected physalis success story

I'm an impatient person, which can be a problem when you're trying to grow fruit and vegetables on an allotment.

Take the physalis (cape gooseberry) I tried raising from seed for the first time this season, for instance. Regular readers will recall I was convinced they'd died when I transplanted them, only to find they'd revived while I wasn't looking.

I tried one of the fruits, still green in its little papery hood about six weeks ago, and it was horrible - pithy and sour. That's that, I thought, disappointed that they'd been a failure - there was no chance of them ripening this late in the year, was there? I allowed the plants to droop over and ignored them every time I visited the plot. They only avoided being pulled up because I haven't had the time for much work down the plot of late.

Then tonight I popped down to drop off some kitchen waste to the compost heap and inevitably found myself doing a bit of harvesting and weeding in the fading light. And I noticed that the papery husks now  looked not green but the brown colour you see on shop-bought physalis. So I broke it open and the fruit inside was bright orange - I bit into it without a thought and - wow! It was like eating a tomato that had been injected with some kind of tangy orange juice. There were a dozen more ready to pick, and a further dozen on the turn.

So what seemed like a dead loss has, in November, suddenly paid off. I plan to eat them tonight with some cheese and crackers and berate myself for my lack of faith in the power of the plot.

Comments

[Head Burro]

Hey! Well done on resisting the urge to uproot and compost them. They're not my favourite things to eat, but it's a lesson well learnt that whatever I'm planning to grow isn't a failure until it's dead and buried.