Cape Gooseberry

[caithnesscrofter]

How hardy are Cape Gooseberries really? They are soooooo delicious. My new favourite fruit and am dying to grow some. I see they are hardy to -10C (maybe?!) wonder if I was good about covering them during the colder months they might survive.. in Caithness? Would I be crazy to try these outdoors here? Anybody grow them in the chillier parts of the country?

[chadspad]

Im trying them here but the weather is probably a bit better in France. Friends say they grow like weeds. I got some seeds from Ebay and theyve all come up altho I have started them off on a window sill. Everything is worth a go I reckon!

[Jack]

Gidday

When I was a boy they grew wild all over our farm. Anytime we saw some ripe we would pick and eat them and as us boys spent most of our days out on the farm anywhere we squatted to releive ourselves there would be new bushes there the next year. Great things but we very rarely got any home to the house cos they got ettin too soon.

[ohareward]

I have just looked up a gardening guide on cape gooseberries and it said that they are a temporate plant and DO NOT stand heavy frosts. Still, stranger things have been known to happen. Give it a go!!

Robin.

[MadTom]

I grew 12 plants this year in N Devon. I have had no fruit as its been so dark and wet.
I want to try and overwinter them: I have three in the ground in the pollytunnel -all about 6' high and 9 in a small greenhouse in growbags.
I'm thinking of taking the ones in the greenhouse down to ~1foot or so and putting them in 15L Pots.

The greenhouse may be heated on frosty nights - I only had 5 last year.

Any other ideas anyone?

[Odsox]

This may amuse you ... it seems Cape Gooseberry grows wild in a Cork car park !
See ..http://www.irishwildflowers.ie/pages/583a.html

[hoomin_erra]

CC, i'm in the borders area, and have/had 1 plant. During the few days where it was about 0, and we got a bit of snow, all the leaves shrivelled up and died. I've now moved it indoors in the hopes it survives, thus the have/had description. Not sure if they would survive up your way unless they were indoors, or possibly a warm greenhouse or Polytunnel.

[Deorccwen]

Our cape gooseberry plants shrivelled and died after one night of frost. Having said that, they cost us nothing: came up by themselves when we spread compost from our compost bin on the ground (presumably from seeds from the one or two mouldy ones you always seem to find in packs from a supermarket). It was probably completely the wrong time to start growing them (late summer) but they had started fruiting before the frost got them, so it seems possible to grow them here in Bedford anyway.