Ground cherries

Ground cherries didn't seem popular until a couple of years ago, but they've long been a favorite at our place. I grow the Aunt Molly variety although this year I will try a Peruvian variety as well. The taste is a bit hard to describe but it is a mild, sweet, slightly tangy taste like super mild sweet pineapple maybe?

Ground cherries grow in husks, in a bush that hugs the ground and spreads out. They are very robust and we don't water them - once the seedlings are in the ground, we just let them be until harvest time. They fall off the bush before maturity. We plant them over fabric mulch - this makes harvesting much easier. We just raise the sprawling branches up and sweep all the ground cherries to the side to pick them up. We bring bucketfuls inside and they mature inside their husks. Once they are an orangey yellow, without any green hue, they are ready to eat. Ground cherries are about as sensitive to frost as tomatoes, definitely cover them or bring them in before the first frost. The seeds are very easy to save, Just put a few ground cherries in water in a blender or squish them by hand, scoop out the seeds and dry them.

We love to snack on them as is. When we have an abundance, a few of the recipes I like to make with them include:

• Ground cherry salsa - (for freezing)
• Ground cherry compote (water bath  or steam canned)
• Ground cherry jam (water bath  or steam canned)
• Ground cherry / jalapeno jam (water bath  or steam canned)
• Ground cherry daiquiri (there are more and more cocktail recipes online)
• Sautéing ground cherries in margarine or butter in a pan and using them as a topping for pancakes
• Frozen ground cherries - I peel ground cherries and freeze them in a ziploc bag. They are delicious snacks straight from the freezer. They don't get very hard so no need to thaw!

Unfortunately since ground cherries weren't as popular in the past, I haven't been able to find many safety tested canning recipes. I hope this changes soon... I often wish there existed more modern safe canning recipes.