- Growing Physalis: The right location
- When to grow Physalis?
- Growing physalis in a pot or border?
- Sow or plant physalis?
- Good neighbors for the physalis
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The he althy Physalis can also be cultivated here. Find out everything you need to know about growing Physalis in your own garden here.
Physalis (Physalis peruviana) or Cape gooseberry is becoming increasingly popular in this country. This is not only because of her beautiful appearance, but also because of the great taste of the fruit and the easy conditions for successful cultivation. Here we will show you how to plant the Physalis correctly and what you should pay particular attention to.
The physalis not only looks like its relatives the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), which is also a nightshade plant (Solanaceae). They also have similar requirements in terms of location, requirements and cultivation. With a little luck and the following instructions, you will enjoy your Cape Gooseberry for several years.
Growing Physalis: The right location
Physalis can adapt to most soil types - it will grow almost anywhere. In order for your plant to produce a lot of fruit, you should not put it in freshly fertilized soil. In a soil with an excessive nutrient content, it tends to only grow vegetatively and hardly develop any flowers or fruits. The best results can be achieved in rather sandy and normal garden soils. However, the soil should always be sufficiently moist, so, as with the tomato, it is sometimes necessary to use the garden hose. Cape gooseberries are true sun worshipers, so they do not bloom much in partial shade and therefore hardly bear any fruit.
Tip: When choosing a location, make sure there is good air circulation: the plants should not grow too close together and not in standing air. Otherwise it is easy to get infected with fungal diseases or pests such as whitefly or thrips.
When to grow Physalis?
The planting time depends primarily on the type of planting. With the Physalis you have the following three options:
- Either you sowSeed the plant in seed trays from February and plant outdoors in mid-May,
- You use cuttings from the previous year, which are planted out in mid-May, or
- You get ready-made potted plants from a nursery in mid-May.
Since the physalis is not frost hardy, you should make sure not to plant the plant until the last frost is over. This is usually the case after the Ice Saints (mid-May).
Growing physalis in a pot or border?
Whether it is cultivated in a pot or in a bed depends primarily on whether you want to use the plant as an annual or perennial. For annual crops, it is easier to grow the plants in one bed and leave them in that spot all year round. After the harvest, it is then a good idea to take cuttings from the best plants in order to continue the successful culture next year. If you plan to overwinter your plants, it's worth potting them straight away to avoid digging in and out.
It's important that the pot you choose has drainage holes for excess water , because the physalis does not tolerate waterlogging very well. The size of the pot should be chosen so that it has at least a diameter of 30 centimeters and a depth of 50 centimeters in order to offer the plant enough space.
When choosing potting soil, good potting soil enriched with a little sand, gravel, expanded clay or perlite is just the right thing. A high-quality, compost-based potting soil such as our Plantura organic potting soil gradually provides nutrients without confronting the Physalis with too high nutrient concentrations.
Summary: Growing physalis in a pot or border?
- In order for your plant to produce the most fruit, it is best to plant it in normal garden soil that has not been freshly fertilized.
- Best results are obtained in medium nutrient sandy soil that is kept sufficiently moist.
- Choose the most suitable form of cultivation for your circumstances: in beds for annual cultivation, in pots for frost-free overwintering of the plant.
Tip: Physalis, which are cultivated in pots for several years, need fertilization every year despite their rather low nutrient requirements, because the reserves in a planter are only very small. For thisA slow-acting, primarily organic fertilizer such as our Plantura organic flower fertilizer is ideal. This is simply sprinkled on top of the earth, worked in with a sheaf and then covered with some fresh earth.
Sow or plant physalis?
The question of whether to sow or plant is primarily a question of cost, since seeds are significantly cheaper than young plants.
It should also be borne in mind that plants from seed only begin to bear fruit in September, because they are adapted to longer growing seasons than in this country. On the other hand, if you plant plants from cuttings or bought or overwintered plants around mid-May, you have about four weeks more time to harvest and thus more of your Physalis. The perennial cultivation with overwintering the physalis is a worthwhile undertaking.
Sowing Physalis
You can then start sowing the seeds in January. For cultivation, you need a substrate that is as low in nutrients as possible, which allows the roots to develop well. For this you can use a high-quality and loose growing soil - for example our Plantura organic herb and seed soil.
Tip: The seeds can be bought either at the nursery or online. However, it is also possible to obtain these yourself by removing them from the pulp. These should be dried very well and spread out on a piece of buttered paper or kitchen roll, for example, and placed in the sun. The seeds can then be stored in a box until January, when they are needed again. Be careful not to get too much moisture, otherwise the seeds could easily mold.
Fill the seed pots or the pot with substrate and sprinkle three seeds evenly into the pots with a planting distance of about 5 cm. You should only cover the seeds thinly with soil and press them down evenly. Then the pots are watered. Be careful not to wash away the seeds. A small spray bottle works best for this.
Now you should place the prepared seed trays in a bright, 20 - 24 °C warm place - preferably in a small propagation greenhouse. This protects the delicate germinating seeds from drying out. However, the seed trays should only be left in the propagation greenhouse until the first seedlings emerge.
To avoid fungal diseases, you should keep the seedlingsget them out of the nursery as soon as possible. If the place where you placed the seed pots is too dark, you can use a plant light. As soon as the weather conditions outside allow it, i.e. as soon as the temperatures rise above 10 °C, the plants can be placed individually and outdoors during the day.
If the plants get too cramped in the small pots or if they already have a few green leaves, they are transplanted into a more nutrient-rich soil such as our Plantura organic potting soil. Here, too, it is important that this is made more permeable with some sand, perlite or expanded clay.
Plant Physalis
No late frosts are expected from mid-May, so it's time to plant out the physalis - both home-grown and purchased: they should choose a sunny, sheltered spot, preferably near a wall, to absorb the heat store and release it to the plant overnight. Dig a hole about two to four inches larger than the pot on each side. Mix heavy clay and loamy soil with gravel or sand to ensure good aeration of the soil. Of course, very light soils can also be improved with some potting soil to increase the water holding capacity.
Then the physalis is used and the rest is filled in with the mixed soil. Now press the fresh soil and water the shrubs properly. When planting, a distance of about half a meter should be kept between the individual plants to ensure good air circulation between them. If you want to plant the plant in a pot, you should also mix the soil with sand, expanded clay, perlite or gravel. A sunny and sheltered location near a wall is also ideal for potted Physalis.
Tip: Like tomatoes, Physalis are non-woody, herbaceous plants. They therefore benefit greatly from a connection, for example from a scaffolding made of wood or metal that runs all around. This means the plant falls apart less and the thin branches don't break off as easily.
Procedure for planting Physalis:
- Dig a hole: Larger than the root ball
- Loosen the soil and improve it with sand (heavy soil) or potting soil (light soil)
- Insert Physalis
- Fill up with mixed soil
- Press thoroughly and evenly
- Pour extensively
- Set scaffolding for connection and attach plants
Tip: Although it is not frost hardy, the physalis can be overwintered frost-free and thus provides even more abundant yields over several years. To do this, it must be brought to a cool and rather bright place in October before the frost in a bucket at about 10 °C. It won't hibernate again until spring. Pruning at this point will ensure that the plant branches out into a bush.
Good neighbors for the physalis
If the physalis is planted as a mixed culture, care should be taken to ensure that the planting neighbors are good. It gets along well with less nutrient-hungry vegetables. These include lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), spinach (Spinacia oleracea), Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), onions (Allium sp.) and cabbage (Brassica sp.), and strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa). Marigolds (Calendula officinalis) keep nematodes out in the soil.
Bad neighbors for the nightshade plant, on the other hand, are their heavy-feeding relatives, such as potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), aubergines (Solanum melongena), peppers (Capsicum annuum) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Here there is a risk of disease transmission and too many nutrients being taken from the soil, which can lead to soil leaching.
You can find more information about caring for physalis here in our special article.