Along with tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, my greenhouses usually house a couple of physalis (cape gooseberry) plants. These aren’t the ones with bright red lanterns but the ones that are served in restaurants with your desert.
They are perennials but there’s always the probability that they won’t survive the winter so I grow new plants every year as well as keeping them overwinter. If they survive then they usually crop earlier than the new plants.
Like all plants, I’m amazed that a tiny seed can grow into a six-foot monster over the spring and summer.
The fruit come late (i.e. this is the first crop of any quantity this year) and they are sweetest if left to fall off the plant. However, this year I’ve had to pick them because the lanterns are starting to get mould on them and it will move to the fruit. Anyway, the above picture shows the first crop (probably about 1/3rd of all the fruit available weighing in at around 160grams. I like them with my breakfast cereal despite the sourness but my better half doesn’t like them at all.
More to come if I keep watering them gently.