cape gooseberry

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Survives zone 8 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Sweet-tart golden fruit inside a papery husk — eaten fresh, dried like a raisin, or in desserts and preserves. ⚠ Eat only the ripe husked fruit — unripe fruit and foliage contain solanine. Care: Winter protection — mulch, fleece, or a warm wall.

Hardiness

Zone 8–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Sprawling herb 1–1.5 m in a season, wider than tall without support; excellent in a large container

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Montane

Native range

The Andes of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia, at 1,500–3,000 m — a cool-highland tropical plant, not a lowland one, which is why it crops well in a temperate summer and dies at the first hard frost.

Status

Cultivated

Years to fruit

1 yr

Growth speed

Fast — 1–1.5 m in a season from a spring sowing

Spacing

90 cm (35 in) apart — about 1.2 per m² (1.1 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Alternate, heart-shaped, soft and velvety-hairy 6–15 cm, on a sprawling, brittle, hairy stem that needs support or space to flop.

Root system

Shallow, fibrous and wide-spreading, and brittle with it — the plant is easily rocked loose by wind. In frost-free climates it is a short-lived perennial that will resprout from the base; anywhere colder it is grown as an annual.

Fruit description

A golden-orange berry 1.5–2 cm inside a papery inflated calyx that turns straw-brown and dries as the fruit ripens. Sweet-tart, grape-like in texture, with a distinct tropical-fruit tang. The husk is the ripeness test: pick when it is dry and the fruit drops of its own accord. ⚠ Unripe green fruit and the foliage contain solanine — eat only ripe, husked fruit.

Propagation

Seed sown indoors 8–10 weeks before the last frost, exactly like a tomato. Softwood cuttings root easily and are the way to carry a good plant through a frost-free winter.

Pollination

Self-fertile

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.