Pinching off the Physalis

It's time to start pinching off the physalis in our garden.  We are just starting to harden them off after their winter in the green house and one of them is already beginning to get a bit too spindly.  They seem to be very vigorous plants and grow like the clappers, wanting to grow extremely tall very quickly.  The fruits start to appear at the tips of the shoots so if you want more fruit you must encourage the plant to make more shoots rather than tall shoots.  The plant on the left is still fairly small and stubby so I'll leave that one alone but another one we have is at just about the right phase to start pinching....as far as I know. This bush is actually starting to produce flowers so I felt very guilty picking one off but I know that in the long run there will be many many more.  Pinching off basically means that you cut off the growing tip of a shoot. This encourages more side shoots to develop. Once the new side shoots grow long enough you can repeat the same procedure with them and so one main shoot with one tip turns into  possibly  20 side shoots with obviously 20 tips.  So the amount of fruit that can be had is greatly increased presuming all other factors go well. 

To cut off the tip you can simply pinch it off with your nails as the physalis is very soft and you can make a clean cut very easily. 

Just to see exactly how effective this is I have left one of the stalks "unpinched" in order to see how it develops in comparison to the others and I'll let you know how it gets on in a month or two.

In the mean time I'd love to get some feedback on whether or not the photos that I use in these posts are clear enough.  Can you understand clearly what I am trying to get at or would more photos be useful?  Are they big enough etc?  This will help me to improve the clarity of posts.  So please leave a comment or email me at the link provided on the left. 

Comments

[Bartelby]

Hi,

The photos are great. I have heard of pinching before but never know what it was! Great to get a demo of what to do! What kind of fruit does that plant produce? I have never heard of it before

[Angelady]

I, too, think the photos are great. I was thinking that you must be a part-time professional photographer! I'm learning so much reading your blog. I've bookmarked it (which is something I never do for gardening blogs). You're right, there really isn't enough information out there for container gardening organically. Thanks for helping to change that!

Blessings,
Angela

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