Make a Rainbow...

Strawberries - Encouraging good fruiting conditions and more on runners

When we got them we planted our first three strawberries all in one pot - a large fish box - and last year I realised that it wasn't a very good idea.  While the plants grew strongly and did produce strawberries it was very hard to look after them as there was such a massive tangle on leaves.  There was too much cover for slugs and woodlice to hide.  The leaves of each plant overlapped each other creting a dense thicket.  These guys obviously aren't the best friends of strawberries and so conditions that are unsuitable for them are to be encouraged.

The plants are in their dormant stage in this photo so there are only about 25% of the leaves that were present during the summer. 

Also, the fact that there were so many leaves all overlapping each other meant that most of the strawberries were trying to ripen in very damp conditions.  As a result of this a good few went mouldy (botritis) before being ready to eat :(  Only the ones that hung over the edge and were able to escape the sprawl were salvaged.

Here is one that was planted in a pot by itself and this fared much better.  We have about 7 of these and overall I think that if you are keeping strawberries in pots then they should be potted up singly.  It was easy to see the growing strawberries and check for any slug damage.  Also it was easier to look under the pots to see where the feckers were hiding as the pot was smaller and lighter.

Originally I had decided to repot the three in the fishbox but then I thought of a better idea.   These three big healthy plants are going to be this year's Mammys.  In order to get really good runners I have read that you should dedicate a plant or two to this purpose alone and prevent them from fruiting.  All the energy then goes into the runners and so next year's plants get a good start. 

Even though I have enough strawberry plants in the garden it is still important to keep propagating new ones.  There are two reasons for this 1) Strawberry plants start to loose their vigour after 3 or 4 years and so they should be replaced with new ones in order to ensure good crops.  Rather than replace all your plants suddenly you should propagate enough every year to replace about a third so that you have a steady supply of mature plants.

As you can see the crown on this guy is quite large and so I think it will do a good job.  But just to make sure I added some manure as a top dressing.  I wouldn't normally add manure to the strawberries this close to summer as it's not too hygenic for the strawberries to be sitting on them.  But as these guys will not be making fruits it should be fine.

The manure will go towards making nice big foliage which should strengthen the plant overall.   

Here is the manure in place.  I put in about two inches of it so we'll see what happens.  When I start to see any little flowers emerging I'll pick them off and just allow about 5 runners to develop per plant.  I'll probably cut off any weak ones and allow the strong ones to mature.

To find out more about runners and how to get them to root and all that have a read of this post

Redcurrant Pruning

In general I find pruning different bushes confusing and it seems to take ages of comparing photos and diagrams to decide which branches to cut.  But I've figured out the red currant for now so here goes.

I bought this bush in mid 2006 and here it is the following spring(2007) just as it started to bud.  When I got the bush the two long(main) branches you can see above were longer.  The norm might be to get one with three or four.  Anyway, what I should have done was prune it immediately as this encourages growth.  I didn't and the thing did not grow at all.  There were a few measly leaves on it all through the year and that was it.  So in its second winter I pruned it so that it looked like it does in the above picture.  I cut the two branches by one half of their length.

The difference this made was incredible!  This is it in May of the same year with loads of new shoots and leaves.  If it hadn't suffered from wind damage it would have gotton a lot bigger.   So pruning actually does promote more vigorous growth.

Here is the same bush about 8 months later in January 2008

(You can see that the some of the branches are all wiggly on this bush because it suffered from wind damage when this years shoots were still very young.  They almost snapped at the join and I staked them upright again hoping they would survive.  Most of them did but the had already gone a bit funny as they weren't sure which way they were supposed to be growing.)

I have read that you should mainly be prune red currant bushes in late winter.  If you have a problem with birds eating the young buds then hold off for as long as possible so as to decide which branches to take off etc.  I suppose if all the buds have been eaten off you should just take this one out, giving more space to other branches.

PRUNING THIS BUSH....

The first branch to go was the right most branch you can see above...the large one that starts at the bottom of the plant.  All branches that are within about 10cms of the ground should be removed so as to encourage a good framework.  Each type of fruit bush seems to need a different shape in order to help the fruit flourish.

    

At the start of the life of the bush you want to start choosing upright branches to keep.  You want four good strong ones to start things off.  There are two obvious contenders here and so I thought about those first.  You chop half of your chosen branch off.  You can see the before and after shots above.  Remember to cut a slightly slanting cut so as to prevent a build up of water on top of the branch.

I then did the same with the three other branches than looked sort of like main upright stems.  Compare this to the bush before I pruned it.....You will notice that there are two side ways branches unaccounted for.  Well, if you look closely you will see two very short "spurs" on the left most branch nearly half way up.  These were pruned differently because they were off shoots of my chosen main stem.  Any side shoots should be cut back so that there is only one bud left on them.  These will be the fruiting spurs for this spring.  I have only two :(

This is not unusual and it will be next year before the fruit is set up for fruiting.  There is now a good frame work on the plant which you develop from year to year, basically repeating the same process.

I hope this is helpful...it may all sound confusing but I have found that if you keep comparing the before and after photos and just start having a go that you will get the hang of it.

Remember to stake any new growth so as to protect against the strong winds.  Putting your pot in a sheltered position would help.  One of the advantages of keeping fruit in pots is that you can move them around depending on the seasonal requirements.

Here are a couple of photos from the book that I have been consulting about this.  They might help.

Good luck!

 

Blackcurrant Cuttings

Ever since we got our first blackcurrant bush about 2 years ago I've been waiting to take a cutting from it in order to increase the potential amount of fruit we enjoy.  Yesterday was the day.  New year's day.  It is recommended to take cutting in about October or November so that they will get a good chance to root before the next growing season, but I have been a bit lazy and only got round to it now.  You choose a good strong branch that has just grown in the current year.

I chose a branch that I would be removing anyway while pruning so as not to waste anything (the one with the arrow pointing at it).  I wanted to remove this branch so as to create an airy centre to the bush.  It seems to be important to allow plenty of air to circulate around a blackcurrant bush so as to prevent diseases.   I'm confused about pruning blackcurrant bushes after this and so I just left it alone.  I will be experimenting with my new bush in the future hopefully.

I read that you should cut the branch off just below a bud, making a horizontal cut.  It is important to have a good set of pruners so as not to tear the fibres thus preventing infection of the bush. 

Your cutting should be about 1ft (30cm) long.

Then you cut off the top piece of the branch, making a diagonal cut.  I did this just above the first good sized bud.

The reason you make a diagonal cut here is to facilitate rain water run off.  You don't want to make the cut too slanty though.  If you do this you will be increasing the area of exposed branch and this too can cause infection.  The one I did possibly could have been slightly less inclined.  When the rain falls on the top of the cutting it should flow off rather than sitting there encouraging rot.

You then either put the cutting into a trench in the ground or a pot like I have done.  As I don't know where I will be living next year I thought it would be better to go with the pot.  I used a mixture of old potting compost and garden soil.  This is one bit I'm not 100% sure of so I'll let you know how I get on!

Here is my garden supervisor and cleaner upper.  He follows us around in the garden as we disturb the soil, revealing plenty of lovely insects.  Bury the cutting to a depth of about 4 inches or 10cm, covering some buds in the process.  This encourages a multistemmed bush which is what you are looking for in a blackcurrant.  In other words more than one stem grows out from the ground. 

Your new cutting should be put somewhere not too sunny and a bit sheltered and left until very clear signs of growth appear.  I would leave it a whole year before disturbing just to make sure it has plenty of roots and will survive a transplant.  If you are doing this in a pot as I have done make sure the pot doesn't dry out at all.

Good luck and I'll let you know how I get on.

Potting on the Strawberry Runners

Transplanting the strawberry runners has been long overdue and so I went for it today so that they would still get a chance to establish themselves over the winter in preparation for a bumper harvest in summer…I hope.

I got a fairly large pot, about 10 inches across and put in a 1 inch layer of pebbles at the bottom.  Strawberries must have good drainage in order to flourish. 

Then I put in a load of our own garden soil, complete with worm(in the middle).  I am using this in preference to a peat based soil in order to see if it will dry out less easily.  This year the strawberry pots were prone to drying out and were then hard to re-wet, so I’m hoping the heavier clay soil will help.  Then I popped in the baby strawberry on top of this and filled up the rest of the container with rich garden compost. 

I put in about 2 or 3 inches of this as I have read that Strawberries like lots of humus and fertility that is not to highly nitrogenous.  I think that this means you shouldn’t use fresh manure and possibly other things that I haven’t identified yet.  I still a bit confused about this.

I didn’t fill the container as much as I could.  I just barely got up to the same level as the base of the plant, the crown.  This is because I want to add some composted manure later in the winter and I don’t want to cover over the crown of the strawberry.  If this is under the soil it will rot and then the plant will probably die.

To top off the planting I added a bit of seaweed meal as an all round tonic.  I gave the newly potted strawberry a reasonably good water and set in the garden where it will get the best sun.  They all look very happy now and I’m also going to compare each plant to see how much difference the size of the pot makes to the amount of fruit obtained.  I’ll report on that in about 9 months!

And now a report on this summer’s fruiting.  The strange thing about our existing strawberry plants is that they are setting fruit again.  I‘m not sure if they have been confused by the weather but three of the plants have nearly fully grown fruit on them.  I have a feeling they won’t ripen but I might put one of the smaller containers in the greenhouse and see what happens. 

The one thing that I learnt was that if you are putting strawberries in pots then it is better to plant just one per pot.  We planted three in a large fish box and in the end it was hard to get into to the middle to maintain them and check on the fruits.  Also there were runners appearing from every where and even though I was trying to restrict there numbers they just kept sneaking out because it was so hard to see into the plants.  The strawberries planted singly however were very easy to keep an eye on and these also suffered less slug damage.  I think it was just too comfy in among the leaves in the triple planted box for the slugs.  There were too many hiding places.  I also found that taking a pot and placing in a tub of water in order to give it a good soaking also hunted out any sneaky slugs and they could then be picked off as they scrambled, slowly, up the side of the container.  The water protection in the form of the raft with its feet in water also helped.  Hopefully next year will be a better year.  The small number of strawberries were absolutely amazingly tasty and I just can’t wait for a proper bowlful……mmmmm

Physalis/Cape Goosberry Success

Our sole remaining hope for our physalis or cape gooseberry began ripening its fruit about 3 weeks ago.

The other runner for best physalis got severely rampant and as a result did not produce many fruits.  It also got attacked by woodlice as it was inside in our porch.  The little woodlice just ate of each flower as it developed and unfortunately it took us a while to realise what was happening.  Fruit plants that are in greenhouses or porches seem to be most affected by these fellas.  Also, the fact that they are in pots seems to confound the issue as well.  But I’ve had a suggestion as to how to prevent this in the future.  Rubbing Vaseline on the stem should prevent the little guys venturing beyond and into the flowering region.  I will certainly try this next year although I have not been able to completely decide whether this would be organic or not….It’ll be good enough I think.  We did very little with the successful plant except leave it in a sunny place and allow the copious amounts of rain that we have had this year to water it. 

The fruits are nearly ripe when the little lantern packaging looks sort of dried up and crispy.  It changes from green to beige.

I have read that you should wait for the fruit to drop off in order to ensure that they are at perfect ripeness but there is no way that we have the patience for this. 

Here is Chris marvelling at the wondrous fruit that I thought would never produce fruit.  As it turns out it is pretty easy to grow these and you should expect a reasonable fruit as long as you keep it stressed to a degree.  Chris brought out a cape gooseberry plant to the farm where he volunteers and Jim promptly put it in the ground in a polytunnel.  Again, this was just too easy for the plant and so it just got massive without doing much fruit.  Chris is now experimenting with taking cuttings from this plant and I’ll let you know how he gets on. 

Here is the finished product once the handy wrapping is peeled back….all lovely and yellow and soft. 

Yum! 

Unfortunately some of the fruits have split while still on the plant.  I’m not too sure why this is but it may have something to do with getting too much rain in a sudden burst.  We still ate most of these ones and they were still nice although a few had started to go mouldy.  So in some ways it might pay to take them off a little early so you can be monitoring the situation.  Overall I would HIGHLY recommend these fruits as being easy to grow, very suitable for planting in containers and for small areas.  They don’t seem to require much heat but do need to be taken indoors during the winter to ensure they survive another season.  Have a go!

Blackcurrant Flowers and Woodlice

A few months ago as our blackcurrant bush was happily blossoming and promising a bountiful harvest I began to notice something very annoying.  The flowers were falling off just as quickly as they were developing.  This had also happened last year, in the bushes first season in our garden, and I had not figured out what the cause had been.  This year I decided that I had to figure it out fast or we wouldn't get a single fruit at all.

So, I pulled out my little garden stool and sat in front of the bush which is currently occupying a large car tyre.  I decided that the best way to deal with this was to listen to the bush.  By this I mean to let it tell me what to do.  Now, to be fair, I didn't think that the bush was actually going to speak to me but in some way I knew that if I listened properly I would get some sort of feedback from it, or maybe my own instincts would give me the feedback I required.  Either way I had tried this to a small degree on other plants and animals and it seemed to have worked. 

So I closed my eyes and listened.  At first I got the impression that there was nothing I could do, that the plant was doomed to be fruitless again this year.  Then my mind's eye started to move up and down the branch that was in front of me.  Up and down and up and down, making a vague spiral on each descent and ascent.  At first I had no idea how to interpret this but then my mind seemed to be shouting "open your eyes!".  At last I did this and there right in front of me were two woodlice walking down the length of the branch.  It hit me suddenly that they must be snapping the blossoms off.  Why they would do this I wasn't quite sure but it must have been them.  I watched another few walking up a different branch and then I looked at the top of the branches in question.  There, nestled in a tight bunch was what seemed like a little nest of woodlice, just beside the few blossoms that were left.  They were all mooching around and seemed to be very comfortable indeed.  I wasn't sure how to remove them because they were so tightly bunched in a cluster of new buds.  I took a chance and shook the branch fairly violently so that they starting to fly off in all directions.  I managed to clear them off the plant but knew they would return.  Luckily only a couple of the remaining blossoms had fallen off and the next day when I shook off the intruders again none of the blossoms fell off.  After a few days of shaking the woodlice didn't return and so the flowers turned to fruit which slowly ripened.  In total we had about 12 fruits, but at least we had some and now I know what to look out for next year. 

The fact that the bush is in a pot may cause it to be more susceptible to woodlice as they have plenty of places to live over the winter.  For example they would congregated under the pot or under the lip of the tyre at the top.  But maybe if I keep an eye on the plant from the start of spring I can prevent a build up, or maybe I could go and ask the blackcurrant if it has any advice :)

The fact that I got some insight into the problem by taking the time to just listen to the plant still surprises me but I intend to experiment more with this and see if I can get a better insight into all my fruit issues.  Where the information is coming from, while being an interesting question, is less important than the fact that it seems to be possible to find the solution to more things than we might give ourselves credit for. 

Alpine Strawberries - Growing and Propagating

Our most successful fruit so far this year has been the alpine strawberry.  Safely nestled on a little slug and woodlice proof island (almost) they have been fruiting for months now. 

They require very little maintenance once they have been planted and provide an abundance of little strawberries.

SOIL AND PLANTING

They seem to like fertile, well drained soil which is slightly acidic

Our alpine strawberries have done really well in containers.  The bigger the container the better as the size of the plant will match the size of the container.  We have two alpine strawberries in a largish car tyre and they are the biggest ones even though all of the runners were planted at the same time.

Make sure that the crown of the plant is not planted below the surface of the soil as they are prone to rotting. 

MAINTENANCE

Once you plant them there is very little maintenance however the older leaves gradually die and I remove these as well as the fruiting stalks that have finished up.  I do this to try to reduce the possibility of woodlice and slugs taking up residence in the decaying leaves. 

Also, as an extra deterrant to slugs and woodlice I soak each pot in water every so often.  Any visitors that are sleeping over in the strawberry quickly leave for the safety of dry land. 

They need plenty of water throughout the fruiting season but this year we didn't need to worry about that too much as it has been really wet for the last two months.

PROPAGATING

I have read that the alpine strawberries don't send out runners but they do create runner like pieces of new plant that can be taken off and planted.

You can see the little roots forming on the new shoot.  If you weigh this down with a stone for a while so that it touches the soil the roots will grow stronger.  In a couple of weeks you can cut the stalk that connects it to the mother plant.  Leave it there a little longer just to give it a chance to catch its breath before you remove it and put it in a smallish pot.

This will probably start to send up flowers fairly soon but I will pinch them off for a while just to let it get a head start.

All strawberry seem to have to be replaced after a number of years.  This could be between 3 and 6.  I will find out more about this myself over the coming years but I'm sure it pays to have new plants coming on every year to ensure a steady supply of strawberries.

Apparently these strawberries can be grown from seed as well although I haven't tried it.  I will though, and I'll do a post on the success or failure of the venture next year.

HARVESTING

Our alpine strawberries have been giving fruit since the end of May and they show no signs of stopping now in the start of August.  In order to have a enough fruit to have a couple of bowls of strawberries every few days you would need about 14 full size plants I think...maybe a few more. 

Once they turn a deep red colour they must be picked fairly quickly as they tend to go off on the plant within a day.  The taste turns bad so you need to go around every day checking to see which ones are ready.  Once you pick them you must eat them within 30 minutes really.  They don't keep well at all as they seem to just go dry and tasteless once off the plant.

In the picture above you can see a few stages of strawberries fruiting.  The red strawberries look ready for picking from this angle but once you look at the other side they are still a bit white.

So far this year they have been very satisfying and I would really recommend them as they are so easy to look after and are quite attractive to look at too.

Growing Cape Gooseberries - From Seed to Setting Fruit.

We're still learning about these plants but we seem to have a healthy crop of fruits on one of the plants. This is what we know so far about growing them.  We've found it hard to get information on them as they are not grown too commonly in Ireland or Britain.  They seem to do very well in containers but need a lot of water when they are setting fruit.

PROPAGATION

From Seed.

We are still learning about this but there seems to be two options for creating new plants.  Take the seeds from a fruit and plant them.  These fruits can be bought in some supermarkets in Ireland.  Otherwise, the next time you're in a hotel getting your desert nab the cape gooseberry that nearly always accompanies the deserts.  I have seen the seeds in a garden shop once but I don't think they will be too easily come by...please let me know if I'm wrong here.

The seeds supposedly need a high humidity to germinate but we pretty forgot about them when we sowed them, letting them dry out several times by accident.  Plenty of them grew so just give it a try and see what happens.  They should fruit in the first year if put into a large container. If they don't then they certainly will the following year.

Cuttings

You can take a cutting from the plant and these apparently root easily.  More on this when we actually try it in the autumn.

SOIL

Cape gooseberries prefer poor soils.  Sandy to gravelly loam is the best.  Do not add fertilisers as you will end up with lots of foliage at the expense of fruit. 

FROM WINTER TO END OF SUMMER

This is where we have most experience so I will take you through what we did over this period of the year.

During the winter we moved the cape gooseberry into the green house as they are frost tender.  The fact that they are in pots makes this a lot easier.  We pruned them at this time as well.

They seem to loose their leaves over the winter but in early March they started to come to life again.

By the end of April they were well and truly on the go and were moved outside as the temperatures rose.

At this stage it may be a good idea to pinch off some of the growing tips in order to encourage a bushy plant.  More branches means more fruits so you don't want to let a couple of branches grow really tall even though it may look impressive. 

By the start of June they were beginning to flower at the tips of each branch.  At this stage three new shoots start to develop at the tip of the older shoot(you can see them to the left and right of the flower and behind it.  Each one of these will start a new fruit and then three more shoots will start from each one and so the number of fruiting tips increases and increases.

You can see this clearly on the right side of this picture.  So as you move up the stem there are fruits at different stages of development.  At the top of this photo you can see the flower buds before they open.  Yellow flowers then emerge.  This falls off and the calyx closes again.  This is the lantern like thing that is encasing the fruit as it now forms (bottom of picture).  The calyx then grows to about 3 cm in diameter.

It's kind of frustrating not to be able to see the fruit as it develops but we've had a few tentative peeks through the calyx and we can see fruit that are just less that 1 cm in diameter. 

Overall there seems to be very little maintenance with cape gooseberries.  There was a huge amount of rain during the last 7 weeks and so we did not have to think about watering them but make sure they do get enough water when setting fruit. 

They do however need to be sheltered from strong winds or if this is not possible staking is definitely recommended as the shoots are quite soft and easily snapped. 

Here are our two biggest cape gooseberries and you can see that we didn't know about the pricking off of the shoots at the start of the season and ended up with one lanky plant.  This one was also kept indoors for much longer and this may have just made it go bananas.  So it seems that the cape gooseberry does not really want high temperatures in order to set good fruit.  There was only a fraction of the amount of fruit on the lanky one.  Also, as the lanky one had been kept in doors it suffered from constant attacks of woodlice.  These little fellas seem to enjoy nipping off all new flowers and nothing else.  I think they suck sap from the plant at these sites but I'm not 100% sure.  So very few of the meagre collection of fruits survived and we decided to cut back the plant and just see what it does.

Here is a close up of the fruits on the good plant at the moment.  It is still flowering and so we are expecting a really good crop.  We are holding our breaths as we can barely believe that we will have these amazing fruits in abundance fairly soon. 

Hopefully the next post will be on harvesting the ripe fruit.........

Strawberry Runners

It's that time of year when the strawberries are doing their best produce off spring.  We have about 8 strawberry plants which are in various stages of maturity.  I am trying to give the younger ones a chance by snipping off their runners before they drain energy from the mother plant and I'm letting some of the older ones send out about 5 runners, again in order not to drain them too much.

Runners are the quickest way for the strawberries to reproduce.  They do produce seeds, on the outside of the strawberry fruit but the runners seem to be the most reliable way to produce more plants.

Here you can see one just starting to grow on the parent plant.  The tip of it is in the middle of this photo.

As it grows it gets a lot longer, maybe 2 feet long, and then starts to grow leaves. 

When the runner has actually started to grow roots this is the time to pin it to some soil so it can spread it's roots into it before being detached from the parent plant.  I tried, last year, doing this before the little roots started to appear and the runner just crept its way out of the pot again.  I think that the bit connecting it to the parent plant has to reach it's maximum length before it wants to root itself.  This makes sense as it probably wants to be far enough away from the parent plant to ensure a good supply of nutrients.

When you've decided that now is the right time to root the runner the best thing to do it fill a small pot with soil or compost.  Make sure the soil is well watered and then place the runner on top of the soil.  You do not need to bury it.  I wasn't too concerned about the type of soil I used here as it won't be in this pot for more than a couple of months.

To prevent the strawberry from popping out you can weigh it down with a small stone.  You can also pin it down with a bent stick or something.  Whatever comes to hand.  The runner should remain attached to the parent plant for at least a week until it has it's own root system. Two weeks might be even better.

When you think that the runner is big enough to stand on its own two feet then cut the piece connecting it to the parent.  This is best done during cool or wet weather.  I did this with some of my runners during a spell of very warm weather and every day the new strawberries wilted and then recovered at night time.  They were obviously having a bit of difficulty staying hydrated. 

 

As the new strawberries grow they will need to be transplanted into larger pots.  When you do this remember not to bury the crown of the plant in the soil.  This is basically the area where all the new shoots come from.  It likes to be at the surface in order to prevent rotting.  This strawberry plant is about 9 months old and still has a bit of growing to do.  Some of its sister plants have fruited this year but not this one for some reason. 

It seems that you really only need to buy a few strawberry plants and then over the next few years the number can be greatly increased with a little patience and tender care. 

We've had some of our first ever strawberries in the last couple of weeks and OH MY GOD!  They are amazing.

Physalis / Cape Gooseberry - Introduction

THE MOST EXOTIC FRUIT IN OUR GARDEN IS DEFINITELY OUR PHYSALIS OR CAPE GOOSEBERRY.  They are also know as Chinese lanterns and they are normally found as decorations on deserts.  Most people don't seem to know that they can be eaten and so they are pushed aside, but they are absolutely gorgeous.

Roughly two years ago Chris decided that he was going to sow the seeds from some fruits we had bought in a shop.  I thought that they would never grow but I was wrong and we ended up with about 8 little plants.

Here is one of them today, looking nice and healthy along with two little nasturtium stow aways.  It will grow up to about 3ft or 1m tall.

The leaves get about 15cm long and are covered with downy hairs.

The stems are also very downy.  You can see that new shoots grow from the junctions of old ones.  Apparently Cape Gooseberries are related to the tomato plants which also produces side shoots like these.

Here is the first flower appearing this year on May 10th.  It's the upside down tear shaped darker object.

Here you can see the flower developing.  They seem to grow at the tops of sturdy shoots and there are three growing here although you can only see one. 

Shortly after this the flower will begin to hang down and the other flowers get pulled farther away as the stem grows upwards.

When we get fruits I will put some up pictures here so come back in a few months!

ABOUT CAPE GOOSEBERRIES

New plants are generally grown from seedlings every year however ours are in their third season now and are still going strong.  We will probably save some seeds for next year just in case.....

The fruits are round, shiny, about 1cm across and a pale orange colour with loads of seeds inside.  They grow encased in a paper case that looks like a chinese lantern. 

They can be eaten fresh on their own or in fruit cocktails.  They keep for a few months in a dry atmosphere once picked. They can also be used to make jam, sauces, used in pies, puddings, chutneys and ice cream.In Colombia, the fruits are stewed with honey and eaten as dessert and can also be dried.

Here is some information on the nutritional value and it's possible medicinal uses that I came across here

Food Value Per 100 g of Edible Portion*

Moisture	78.9 g
Protein	0.054 g
Fat	0.16 g
Fibre	4.9 g
Ash	1.01 g
Calcium	8.0 mg
Phosphorus	55.3 mg
Iron	1.23 mg
Carotene	1.613 mg
Thiamine	0.101 mg
Riboflavin	0.032 mg
Niacin	1.73 mg
Ascorbic Acid	43.0 mg

*According to analyses of husked fruits made in Ecuador.

The ripe fruits are considered a good source of Vitamin P and are rich in pectin.

In Colombia, the leaf decoction is taken as a diuretic and anti asthmatic. In South Africa, the heated leaves are applied as poultices on inflammations and the Zulus administer the leaf infusion as an enema to relieve abdominal ailments in children.

Interesting.....

For more information on how to grow these wonderful fruits come back in a few weeks when I will do a post on sowing and raising them.