Cape Gooseberry

Cape gooseberry can be direct-sown or started as transplants and is otherwise grown much like a tomato, given full sun and moist, well-drained soil; for annual production, seed is started indoors six to eight weeks before the last spring frost, with transplants set out once frost danger has passed.

The plant grows into a branched, spreading shrub reaching several feet tall, spreading by rhizomes and self-seeding aggressively if left unchecked. Soils of medium to poor fertility are preferred, since heavy fertilizing or excess water pushes the plant toward leafy growth at the expense of flowering; as a frost-tender perennial it can be carried through winter under row covers, though it will freeze back to the ground where cold is severe, and fruiting typically begins seventy to eighty days after transplanting and continues through summer.

Cape gooseberry is susceptible to most of the common diseases and pests that affect tomatoes. As a nightshade, its leaves, stems, flowers, and unripe fruit contain solanine and related solanidine alkaloids that are toxic if eaten, producing headache, stomach pain, lowered temperature, dilated pupils, vomiting, diarrhea, and circulatory and respiratory depression; only the ripe fruit is safe to consume.

Only the ripe fruit is collected, once it has colored and often after it falls to the ground still wrapped in its papery husk. The husk must be shucked before the berry is eaten, but fruit left inside its intact calyx keeps for roughly a month at room temperature and considerably longer under cool storage, a quality that historically let husked berries survive long sea voyages.

Culinary: the ripe fruit is eaten fresh or in salads, and is made into chutneys, jellies, jams, preserves, sauces, pies, juice, and wine.

Ornamental: the bell-shaped flowers and inflated, papery husks are valued as cut and dried material for arrangements.

Medicinal: the fruit's introduction to South Africa in the early nineteenth century is linked to its use as a possible remedy for scurvy, and various parts of the plant have been used in traditional medicine in countries such as Cameroon and Colombia.

Cape gooseberry is native to the Andean highlands of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Chile, and possibly Brazil, where its cultivation traces back to the Inca Empire. It was introduced to England by the late eighteenth century and to South Africa by the early nineteenth century, the latter giving rise to its common name, and from South Africa it spread to Australia, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before being widely distributed worldwide during the twentieth century.