oh boy. A word of caution. Ok MANY words... I have tried over 1000 plants from seed. Physalis is without a double the most invasive, difficult to irradicate of all of them. A garden center near here prefaces their purchase by saying be sure to plant in a place where you can round-up or mow around it. You can't contain them in a dug in pot as they will grow over also thru the drain holes. Worse than obediant plant to remove. You can't tarp them to remove them quickly, as they will grow under the tarp. You can't round-up them to remove them, they just keep coming up. - you have to dig it all out including all the dirt and those things run underground for severla feet. I lost quite a bit of garden space for a year ....in 2 gardens. Never again. Now- if you must. They wintersow just fine. Poor lanterns the first year but more the second. Not pretty as the lanterns hide in the foliage. Better dried. I'm zone 5. Hope this helps. Good luck! Karen

You'll want to give the seeds and seedlings the same care as if you were growing tomatoes. Plenty of light for the seedlings, not too much water (they hate being waterlogged), also - cool temperatures (both soil and air) will reduce their growth.

Bill - lots of previous discussions here about ground cherries and tomatillos both. Many grow them. Personally I never cared for ground cherries so don't grow them but tomatillos are easy, or at least as easy as growing tomatoes. But I sure wouldn't write off growing tomatoes either as many Floridians do it successfully and many of the rest of us really envy your two seasons for growing. Nematodes can be treated or you can just use containers. Same goes for diseases. And given all the thousands of tomato varieties available perhaps you need to investigate using different varieties with very different maturity dates than what you have been using. Have you checked with all the tomato growers over on the Florida Gardening forum here for tips? Dave

Hey Ken or gardengal, would a spin out root control bag be a good idea to plant the physalis in? I know the purpose of the bag is to prevent mature tree roots from invading the small plant's roots but for the physalis I want to use it to stop this plant from spreading. 11 in wide. https://wrdist.com/tex-r-agroliner-spinout-root-control-bags.html