The differences between lantern fruit and girl fruit: different shapes, different appearances, different tastes, etc.

1. Different shapes

The lantern fruit belongs to the perennial shrub of the Currant family and the family Camellia genus. The plant height is about 1.2 meters. The old branches are gray-black, and the small branches are gray to gray-brown. It is pubescent, and the skin peels off in strips or sheets, with 1 to 3 thick spines on the nodes in the lower part of the leaf. The girl's fruit is a perennial upright herbaceous plant of the Solanaceae family, Physalis genus, with a plant height of 50 to 80 cm. The above-ground stems are often unbranched and have longitudinal ribs. The stem nodes are enlarged, and the young stems are covered with dense pubescence.

2. Different appearance

The lantern fruit is spherical, a little larger than your thumb, and has vertical lines on it, like the skeleton of a lantern, hence its name. The girl fruit has a lantern-shaped outer skin, which is bright and transparent, and several longitudinal vascular bundles are clearly visible.

3. Different tastes

The lantern fruit tastes extremely sour when immature, turns yellow-green when mature, and purple-red when fully mature. It tastes sour and sweet. The fruit is very bitter when unripe, but after frost in autumn, the outer foreskin turns fiery red and the fruit inside turns yellow. When ripe, it is not only sweet but also slightly milky.

Notes on planting lantern fruit:

1. Select a site for planting

Although lantern fruit does not have very strict soil requirements, it is necessary to choose soil with more humus. Fertile, loose soil. Orchards should be established in leeward and sunny locations, away from noisy places such as residential areas and factories. To ensure that the orchard is pollution-free, try to build the orchard on a hillside, but the slope must not exceed 10 degrees. When planting, determine the planting density. The row spacing between each plant is about 1*1m. The width and depth of the planting holes are about 40cm. Apply 5kg of farmyard manure to every planting hole.

2. Shaping and pruning

Lantern fruit will usually start to bear fruit in the second year after planting. There will be almost 2 to 3 fruits on one ear. In the year of planting, you should choose to retain 4 to 5 basal branches with strong growth and good robustness. After the second year, 4 to 5 basal branches will be retained each year. Usually, about 20 basal branches will be retained in each cluster.