Plant family: Solanaceae
Plant origin: South America, Andes Mountains.
Fruit description: Do you want to pick your fruit already delicately gift-wrapped ? Cape Gooseberry fruit is a small round berry about 2cm in diameter, which is wrapped in a papery shell (the flower calyx). The ripe fruit is orange and contains many small seeds. The sweet berries are tasty to eat fresh, can be used in fruit salad, or made into jam and pies. The plant makes a lovely pot specimen, with abundant fruit.
Flowers: The Cape Gooseberry flowers in spring, summer and autumn. The flowers are small, 5 sided, and yellow with purple at the base of the petals.
Growing conditions: This attractive plant likes warm, moist conditions, in full sun or part shade. The Cape Gooseberry is frost tolerant. It can be grown in a pot, growing to about 1 metre high. The leaves are grey-green. It is a perennial evergreen plant, and should be pruned back heavily after each crop.
Uses: The fruit of Cape Gooseberry can be used in many different ways including fresh, jams, jellies, cakes, pies.
Medicinal uses: Cape Gooseberry fruit is used in herbal remedies as an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant, and for diabetes, hypertension stress, dementia, malaria, asthma, hepatitis, dermatitis and rheumatism.
Pollination requirements: Self – Pollinating. The Cape Gooseberry flowers in spring, summer and autumn. The flowers are small, 5 sided, and yellow with purple at the base of the petals
Harvest time The plant starts to fruit within 6 months. The Harvest season is from Spring through to Winter. The fruit is ripe when it is orange in color, when the papery casing splits open, or when the orange fruit falls to the ground.
Plant relatives Naranjilla, Tamarillo, Chillis and are also related to capsicums and more distantly to tomatoes and eggplants.
Special features: The Cape Gooseberry fruit is enclosed in a papery husk that looks like a lantern. If the picked fruit is left inside this casing, it will keep for several weeks. It is a member of the same family as tomatoes.
Grown by method: Seed Grown Pot size: 140mm
Plant growing Height and Width for pots or in the ground planting: Grows to 1.5 metres high by 1 metres wide if Planted in a Pot. Grows 1.5 metres high by 1.5 metres wide if Planted in the Ground.
Shipping plant pot or planter bag size: 140mm
