Morelle

Native to South America, Balbis nightshade (Solanum sisymbriifolium) is a tender perennial in the nightshade family (Solanaceae), cultivated as an annual in our climates. It displays a striking silhouette, reaching up to 1.4 meters in height, covered in stems, leaves, and calyxes bristling with golden spines. In summer, it offers a remarkable display of large, star-shaped flowers, white to lilac, reminiscent of eggplant.

An unusual companion plant, it is sometimes used as a trap crop in a soil-friendly approach. It attracts potato cyst nematodes and inhibits their development, thus helping to regenerate the soil through a natural strategy. Robust, it grows without pruning in well-drained soil and full sun, with self-sustaining growth and a structuring effect in the vegetable garden.

Its late flowering and fruiting invite rewarded patience, and its singular presence makes it a prickly guardian of the vegetable garden.

Sunberry nightshade is a unique annual plant, long overlooked, but now appreciated for its abundance and culinary uses. Selected in 1909 by the renowned horticulturist Luther Burbank, it was developed specifically to offer a nightshade with edible fruit , unlike the toxic black nightshade, which it closely resembles.

The plant forms a compact and vigorous bushy habit, growing rapidly to about 50 cm in height. It produces an abundance of small, round, dark bluish-purple fruits with a matte appearance, clustered in bunches. These fruits are only edible when fully ripe , at which stage they develop a sweet and pleasant flavor.

In the garden, Sunberry proves surprisingly adaptable. It grows in most soil types, without any particular requirements, and gets off to a quick start once established. Its production is early and sustained, and the plant can sometimes self-seed when conditions are right.