Of groundcherries, these sweet munchies

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Or how you can prolong the berry harvest with groundcherries!

Louise :   Are you acquainted with this flower? It's a tiny jewel that we generally don't notice at first glance. This flower will soon transform into a cute paper lantern look-alike, one that will shelter a beautiful and sweet-tasting pearl...



Here, the sweetest fruit is the one in the translucent envelope.
   The green envelope contains a fruit still too
green to be eaten.

You may know this small round fruit, firm et shiny, the size of a marble, gold or orange, depending on the variety, and that grows inside an envelope closed with 5 sepals, enwith that tiny paper lantern look.

Their unique taste combines that of the cherry tomato, citrus and pineapple. If some don't like it, the others tend to love it!
Personally, I'm always wrestling with the desire to eat them there, right away, Or to put some aside to make an exquisite jam, althought it's not thick enough to suit everybody's taste. When it comes to those shiny golden globes, my husband and grandson are as gaga as me, complicating the situation even more!



That big tuft of greenery by the sidewalk, is actually a multitude of ground cherry plants. I think it's not ugly at all and it stays pretty until the first frosts.  The flowers you see around attract pollinators, thus helping the ground cherries produce a very good harvest.

I planted groundcherries for the first time three summers ago, and frankly I'm wondering why I didn't do it sooner, since they have so many perks :

* The plants produce a great quantity of very nutritious berries, which are  excellent for your health. It doesn't take a lot of space, and they fruit for an extended period : from the middle of summer till the first light frosts. Here, I gave them 24 square feet (2 square meters, if you prefer) in full sun. But they can be grown in containers - As long as they are in a sunny spot and they have enough water.

* They're not really ornemental plants, but they do keep a good appearance throughout the season - which is not the case for every food plant. That's why I am not ashamed to put this plant in the front yard, where everyone can see it.

The berries really don't show that much.
You have to get close and lift the leaves to see them...

* Another big bonus, the plants don't need any staking since their stalks are strong and only grow as high as 50 to 90 cm. They do tend to grow in width so be careful.

The berries on the ground are ready to harvest.
We can also take them inside on a sunny window
to let them mature, a bit like tomatoes.

* The plants are annual here, but they do manage quite well on their own to reseed themselves (you just need to forget a couple of berries on the ground). They are also easy to produce in Québec and can fruit as soon as two months after plantation.

* They make a good amount of shadow on the ground so weeds are not generally a problem. However a good mulch under them will keep the berries that fall down clean and dry.

And since these plants prefer dry soil, no need to water them unless they're in containers or unless you have a severe drought.

As soon as August arrives, my plants give me 2 ou 3 cups
of berries, about every  2 to 4 days.
It's a bit of magic to be able to collect fruits like this
in september and even sometimes in october.

* It's easy to know when to harvest your berries : When they're mature, they drop on the ground all by themselves. All that's left to do is for you to pick them up, but you do have to be careful to not bruise the plants while harvesting.

The berries keep also very well : 4 à 6 weeks at room temperature in a dry spot, if their envelop is intact and dry.

* The berries behave like tomatoes : a fruit that started to mature but fell from the plant (a shade of green closer to yellow) will generally be able to complete it's maturation inside your home. The really green berries however won't.

I wiped the frost with my thumb here,
to make a small window for you to see
those beautiful pearls full of flavor.

What to do with all this abondance?

. We can eat them just like that, of course, maybe dipped in chocolate or caramel, used to decorate pancakes, or in fruit salads, chocolate fondues, or even as a garnish on a plate of cake or a bowl of ice cream, like some restaurants do.

. A purée, a jelly (add pectin), or a delicious jam (again add pectin if you prefer thicker jam). Pies can also be made out of them, or just dry them so they can replace raisins. Finally, there is also the possibility of just freezing them, without the need to cook them beforehand. Personnally, I wash them, wipe them up and then I put them in a clean glass jar (an old jam jar for example).


Watch out, however, not to eat the green berries, since they can give you serious belly aches and diarrhea, since these contain solanine, you know that same thing we are warned about regarding green potatoes.

Short list of information for those who want to know more... 

There is about a hundred species of groundcherries, (Physalis, in latin), annuals or long-lived, and many of them produce edible fruits. We find them on many continents. They are known under the names groundcherries, goldenberries or cape gooseberries, but in french they share these names : coquerets, amours en cage (love in a cage) or groseilles du Cap (Cape gooseberries, as previously mentionned).

The prominent species in Québec is Physalis Pruinosa, an annual. At the grocery store, in winter, it's also possible to buy Physalis Peruviana, the fruit of that one is bigger, orange instead of gold and it's wrap is sturdier and more opaque and dark. Personally, I don't really like this variety, because it has a light bitterness.

You may also know Physalis Alkekengi, also called Chinese Lantern which is used as an ornemental in Québec. It's a long-lived plant that can become very invasive, but its berries have a beautiful orange wrap. They are supposed to be edible, but I've never taste any. Opinions on this? Because I wouldn't have it here, considering its reputation as an aggressive and invasive plant, and since it's also been told that once you have some, it's very hard to get rid of it.

Well, that's all for now folks, have a great harvest!

Cat squad, safe berries

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Freya is an accomplished gardener; she unearthed
a good number of the leek seedlings
that I took so much time to transplant.

Hélène : 

Despite the comment under this photo of my Freya, cats can represent a real asset in the garden. Their presence is even contributing to a typical permaculture synergy in both my garden and Louise's. So, here are our gardening cats' stories.

Louise : Among the delightful succession of berries and fruit crops, blueberries are ripe at the beginning of July (at least the northern type, short variety in my backyard). It's just in time for the end of strawberries and well before the first raspberries.

Alas, the gardener is not alone to look greedily at the promise of this blue gem : birds will swallow them to the last one as soon as they discover where they are !

Imagine a net over these blueberries... It wouldn't be as poetic, would it ?

Hence the necessity to protect our crop. Some gardeners will tend nets over their plants, others will go as far as caging them. To make the challenge even more interesting, the highest the varieties are, the more likely they will be spotted by every neighbouring bird. And perched on a high bush, they will feel a lot more secure than on shorter, ground hugging varieties.
  

Specimen of catmint, not yet
trampled by the "lionesses"
of the house.

In my garden, this burglary problem never occured, mainly due to a coincidental association between my blueberry patch and... catnip, aka catmint (herbe à chats or cataire in French, Nepeta cataria in Latin). Many species of felines react to this aromatic plant emiting a peculiar odor reminiscent of mint. This smell has an effect on their brain, and they react weirdely (take a look on YouTube, just for the fun of it).

This year, I harvested 6,5 litres of blueberries, over a
period of a month. My patch is only 25 square feet
large (a little more than 2 square metres).

This vegetal "family" attained balance just south of a huge Norwegian spruce tree that produces acidic soil (which is perfect for the blueberries).
From the left, Virginia Raspberry (Rubus Odoratus), a bush tree producing pink flowers followed by red berries, capable of adapting to difficult, acidic, poor and dry conditions. Catnip, also a tough perennial, is in the center, in full bloom with its blue spikes. At its right, you see about half of the blueberry patch. At the back are standing the smallest blueberry plants (30cm - 1 foot high). They're small because of their proximity to the huge Norwegian Spruce that is limiting their growth. The other bueberries, standing further away from the spruce (look at the bottom right in the photo),
are taller and more productive. The biggest ones are 75cm (2,5 foot) high. We don't see them on this photo.

The relationship between catnip and kitties :

Your most aristocratic cat, providing the necessary genetic proclivity, will lose its dignity at once as soon as it will smell it. It will experience a dramatic change in mood, generally becoming good humored and easy going, sensual and all of a sudden, very demonstrative, a kind of behavior you would rather expect from a dog. The essential oils produced by the plant are responsible for this reaction. The cat will rub against it, taste it, roll over it, and purr passionately. Some will even start to drool. After a while, Kitty will start to feel sleepy. Best of all : your cat will want to visit this aphrodisiac plant very frequently and stay close for long moments. This is where th lazy gardener can really bank on the cat's presence.

Here, we see the cats' favorite spot to take a nap,
comfortably lined with dried leaves, right under the
blueberries and very close to one of the two
catmints. And the first cat to come is the
lucky one !

I have the chance to own four female cats that, luckily, are all susceptible to catmint's charms.

Therefore, they incidentally took to themselves to guard the blueberry patch, since two big catmint plants are also planted right at the edge of the patch. The fact that my bluberry plants are of a short variety doesn't do any arm either. As a result, birds are avoiding carefully this small area of the garden and I never lost even a single blueberry to them !

Pinotte and Calimero just arrive to inspect the catnip
 after a big rainfall. The plants' perfume has been
revived by all this water, but they are really
much too wet to sprawl over them.
On the other paw, it doesn't  hurt to taste a little bit
of those fresh, juicy, fragrant leaves...

Catmint has a natural tendancy to flop over. But it withstands the abuse done by the cats and won't mind a cutback, once in a while. I saw my huge tomcat continually taking a nap right over the plants when they were still only young seedlings. They would simply disappear under him. And despite all my expectations, not only did they survive an entire summer of this treatment, but they thrived to become the big healthy things they are today.

If you can't stand the idea of a cat walking on your property, catmint is not for you. But if you think of their eventual visits in a benevolent set of mind, you will have 80% chances to lure them wherever you want them to stand guard for you.

By the way, herborists use catmint leaves. You can make herbal tea, and also dry them up for your own cat, to stuff one of its toys, for instance.

Hélène :

Floraison de l'amélanchier

The idea, here, is to use various relationships between plants and animals and to put them to everybody's profit. You see, according to Permaculture principles, gardeners are looking for ways to multiply relationships as much as possible, making the mini ecosystem of a garden much stronger because of its greater complexity.

This same principle is also applied in my garden, but with my Juneberry (Amelanchier Canadensis, also known as saskatoon or serviceberry). It's a bush or a tree - depending on the cultivar - part of the  Rosaceaes, like roses, evidently, but also like apples and peaches, among others.

It's an amazing tree : very nice small white flowers covering it in springtime, beautiful red berries ressembling blueberries, only a bit bigger in June, and at fall, a fiery red-orange foliage.

But it's a birds' favorite and since mine is a tree (and not a bush), even with a catmint plant  at its foot, the bird would come and feast on it without any hesitation. It's understandable : juneberries are the most delicious little gems you can imagine, like a cross between cranberries and blueberries, but much sweeter.

A net would have done the job, but I'm much too lazy for that. Therefore, I decided to use a little ingenuity to convince birds to go somewhere else.

So, I too, enrolled my cats, but my plan didn't include the association of a couple of different plants and the cats, like in Louise's garden. How did I do it, since it's a tree (a little difficult to guard efficiently, even for a cat) ? Well, a big portion of my small backyard is occupied by a big, elevated deck. Wisely, I positioned my Juneberry tree very close to it, near a corner. That way, the lowest branches touch the deck's railing and my three cats love to rest nearby. No bird dare to come close, even if the cats don't represent a real danger to them. It seems that my cats' greedy looks at them is neatly cutting their appetites for my delicious berries!

Naturally, my cats' presence in my small backyard deter most birds, which is a little sad, but when my tree will grow to be large enough, I bet that the birds will come back and then, everybody will share the adondance. I won't mind letting them harvest the highest branches. This arrangement will be even better, from a Permaculture point of vue, since every party (birds, cats, tree and humans) will find its profit. But until that day, the berries are mine !

Be weary of  Buttercup, the ferocious kitty!

A flower told me...

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The tenderness of a Cosmos flower accommodates
my favorite winged insect, a bumblebee.

Helene :
The success of a garden depends on a variety of things: good soil, sun, water, etc. There's also the unavoidable role of pollinators ; without them, we might have flowers, but certainly not fruits or vegetables like tomatoes, peppers... And squashes... And recently, for these last ones, it's been quite hard in the garden.

Last Spring - and even last winter - I didn't plan on having any kind of squash in the garden. I really hold it to fortune, or most likely to the inexperience of this gardener that it assured the presence of cucurbitaceae in my garden. Let me explain.



The responsible party, right there, in black.



For the first time this year, I used my compost bin. I was so happy! A baby step toward self-sufficency, I told myself. And so, 2 weeks later (we were at the end of April, beginning of May), some seeds that weren't destroyed in the compost... sprouted. The result was a couple plants of tomatoes and 2 vines of squashes... What a beautiful occasion to let nature take its course! And why not? I also bought more squashes from my favorite online seeds retailer - a producer from Quebec, by the way :Solana Seeds.

 

The jungle... a tiny part of it.

Now that we are in August, the idea I had last spring seems especially naive. Doubled with another experimentation where I let my son play with sunflower seeds in the garden, it looks particularly desorganised and suffering. First off, everybody knows squashes are monsters that take a lot of space! And if we don't pay attention, they'll crush the rest of the garden. An event that almost happened, here. Since squashes climb on my sunflowers, everything underneath like my bell peppers are having a lot of trouble. Furthermore, the squash flower stays open about 6 hours (according to my personnal observations). Our tiny pollinators are efficient, but the window of opportunity here is so small I only got one fruit... On my 3 vines!



So yesterday morning, paintbrush in hand, I went and played pollinator in my garden. It was a great day to do it too : there was a lot of flowers. But will it make a difference?

 

The tiny squash from Solana, Baby Boo, is the only one to provide me with a fruit.
Thanks G. for the spotting, otherwise I would be depressed!

Huh. One of my son's prodigies. The stem that holds this giant
flower is about 6 feet up.

So this season lesson (at least up to this point) for me is that I need a Plan for next year. I can have squashes and sunflowers together, but I have to plan the spots where they'll be, not just let them grow wherever they sprout. And for those curious out there, no, I have no clue what type of squashes I got in my 2 remaining vines, product of my inexperience - experimentation. Maybe pepper or pumpkin? If only they provide me with fruits, then we would know!

Update : After a bit more observation, the Baby Boo census brings the population to three... Hurray!

Lost in Lavender. At least it's not mint.

Too much mint?

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Helene : Do you have too much mint? Mine mostly covers (read : overwhelm) a small stone path, going under each stone and shooting minty spears here and there. It even manages to grow through a patch of giant hostas in the next plot! It's also in my lawn and althought I love the smell come mowing time, that's still a lot of mint to use. But exactly what can we do with so much mint? 

I thought I lost that frog,

but it was simply hidden in the mint!

Well, here's a simple idea  that uses quite a lot of mint, a useful thing for a plant so prolific that some consider it a weed.

Mint water! Simply fill a pitcher with mint stems & leaves, cover with water and refrigerate. Let it steep for at least a few hours before consuming. You will have water that's absolutely delicious and refreshing. It can seriously make a difference in those hot summer days.

Louise prepared hers with spearmint. It was light and refreshing. I tried it with peppermint ; this gives water a punch and a sweet taste of candy cane. Yum!

I have 4 types of mints on my property and so clearly need to try others then spear and peppermint. I have ginger mint and chocolate mint and am pretty sure these would also make great mint water! If you guys ever try it, let us know what's your favorite! Since then, stay refreshed!

A word from Louise :
I discovered this while in vacation in Amsterdam : my hotel, the Estherea, used to offer its clients a few refreshments around the clock, coffee, cookies and so on. During the summer months, mint water was always available, served in a beautiful refrigerated glass container, dripping from condensation...

These mint stems straightened up all by themselves and got over the pot's rim.
I put them there two weeks ago, already and they show no sign of deterioration whatsoever.
Their leaves are crisp and healthy and they exhale their characteristic smell.

One tip : each time you serve a glass of mint water, refill the pitcher right away with water. This way, the mint water will keep its taste one glass after the other. Also, the mint stems will stay fresh and alive, with a healthy green coloration for days, even a few weeks, giving you many litres of liquid freshness.

Whenever I taste this summer drink, it seems to me that it's more "alive" then plain water. So good !