Everybody has different opinions. The best IMHO is in the ground. Except the figs, as they will not survive. Ground cherries are usually sold as seeds, and you grow like tomatoes. They will do fine in 5-1-1. I don't use either mix, but that's me. I make my own depending on plant. Lime will take care of PH, also using tap water will help as it is basic.
The problem with winter is the freeze-thaw. You want them either warm, or cold. IMHO it's easier to keep them cold. Your method would work, but I would use burlap or row cover. Plastic might attract mold if it get's wet, then it will not dry either. Let it get cold, then put leaves around the plants as you mention. It might be a challenge to get the burlap around. You could use burlap sacks maybe and stuff with leaves. I use burlap, but use a 3ftx24ft roll of it.
I use it to cover blackberries that need protection here.
Keep it in the shade to avoid it warming up, if possible.
All are really hardy so no worries about temps, just need to keep them cold. With strawberries in the ground (note name straw-berries), you let them freeze then cover with straw or pine needles, and they stay at a consistent temp. The problem is if they freeze and thaw numerous times, that is what kills them.
I myself do this, but I keep plants in an unheated garage, it is warmer in there than outside. Plus they have overhead protection. A shed can work too, but you must not let them dry out or be too wet. Snow in pot helps, if they thaw, they will be watered. Helps insulate too. It is super tough to keep plants alive outside in pots, hardest thing I know of. Too wet, freeze thaw, and drying winds are the enemies.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Mon, Dec 22, 14 at 22:51

On fertilizing yes, you are fertilizing on a regular basis, but I would stop once dormant. The pine, well best to use composted pine, that will not draw nitrogen, if fresh, yes some but not like sap wood. So it's not really a problem.
I keep two tart cherries from the Romance series, both are Carmine Jewel cultivar. 4 blueberry plants, and a bunch of strawberries in pots, in the garage over winter. The temps are consistent, no wind, no rain, they were put in after going dormant outside. So they do not need light at all or fertilizer. I water about once every 5 weeks, just keeping them moist. They really do not use much water and easily stay moist that long if not longer. Sometimes it's 8 weeks before I water. I don't use leaves because the garage keeps the temperature steady, no sunlight hits them etc. So they really don't need leaves. Outside they would.
Oh and PH is important in ground or in pots. With blueberries I need to keep PH around 5.0. So that is a lot harder to do, but when it's right they grow like weeds. Beautiful plants too.
I also have honeyberries, but mine are in ground.
I grew Aunt Molly's ground cherry last year. I just made a ground cherry-pineapple crisp. I had some tonight with almond ice cream! Fantastic! Next year I'm going to grow a couple different cultivars. Aunt Molly's is excellent, but I want to try some others. I start the seed with my tomato seeds. I had two plants this year, and they produced about 800 fruits, amazing plants! They had a spread of about 6 feet, they grow that much if not in pots, but in the ground. In pots the spread was about 4 feet. About 1.5 feet tall.
Do not let them dry out, if they dry just once they tend to shut down and production goes way down. They seem unable to recover. I would make a 3-1-1 mix for them, they need to stay moist! For sure no gritty mix here. Feed them well!
I don't have a close up but here is a photo, to the left of the green post on the ground is a ground cherry. To the left is the 2nd one in the raised bed. The beds have tomaotes, peppers, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and beneficial flowers. As you can see the plants are a lot wider than taller. I don't overwinter them, but start new ones from seeds, like tomatoes. They are related to tomatoes, same genus, different species. Hard to move in pots, they are so wide!

Hello, Drew51 --

Thanks so much for your ideas and the time you took to set them down. It looks like we have some common interests.

I would write a little more but I'm afraid I may be heading toward a bad asthma attack. Painful...well, I'll spare you any further gory details The really bad thing is that the one recue inhaler that worked for me has been discontinued.

Probably off to the pulmonologist tomorrow.

The pic of your garden is an inspiration.

Bernard-in-Ohio

Hello, Drews51 --

Just wanted to mention that you answered a couple of questions that I hadn't actually asked, though I intended to, like do I try to overwinter the ground cherries. Just as I thought: just start over again.

On the moveable container question, part of the fun of the whole thing for me is building stuff. For the ground cherries I am making two special containers maybe four feet square x 1 1/2 ft deep -- on wheels. Maybe someday I'll have my own Cherry Blossom Festival, with the containerized trees artfully arranged,

I have a small terrace with good soil where I have three Carmine Jewels, two Crimson Passions, and four paw paws, one Mary Foos Johnson, two NC-1s, and one Sunflower, all planted summer 2014 .

The big terrace is all sand and clay with zero organics. I tried amending it last summer, but it's not going to drain in this lifetime.

The rest of the yard is virtually marsh. So it's containers for me.

So envious of your ground cherry and pineapple crisp... I really love to cook. I want to experiment with the clafoutie concept.

Bernard-in-Ohio

Keep us updated on progress next spring. yes, do things that are fun!
Most do not overwinter ground cherries. But you probably could. Not easy to grow from seed. Although once they take off, they grow well. grow like tomato seeds. You can overwinter tomatoes too, but they tend to attract insects , are usually diseased by the end of the season. Some over winter peppers, as they often produce better the 2nd year.
I have one I'm overwintering.

The pineapple-ground cherry crisp came out great! I will certainly use it again! I liked it a lot,both fruits taste great together. I used a fresh pineapple not canned.
I cook often with my raspberries. I have a few thousand frozen from my garden. Here are some
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I found a photo of one of my ground cherries. It was rather young here. It grew a lot bigger! This plant produced around 400 fruits. It's Aunt Molly's ground cherry. Next Year I'm trying Goldie, and Ammon Martins's ground cherry.
{{gwi:2118130}}

Recipe: Ground Cherry-Pineapple Crumble
⢠Combine 3 cups halved ground cherries and 3 cups fresh pineapple chunks with ý cup sugar.
⢠Spread in a baking pan.
⢠In a food processor, pulse ý cup blanched almonds until coarsely chopped, and then add ü cup unsalted butter, ü cup flour, and ý cup brown sugar.
⢠Pulse until roughly blended; then spread over the fruit.
⢠Bake at 375ðF or 30 to 40 minutes, or until bubbling and golden.
⢠Serve warm with vanilla ice cream