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This little delight, far better known in Latin America (where it is a literally essential ingredient of what Gringos call "salsa"), is the subject of much gross misunderstanding in North America. It is continually being confounded with its close and not-so-close relatives (described below); we once, back in California, ordered some "tomatillo" seeds which, when we finally harvested the crop, we discovered to have been Cape gooseberry--possibly useful in desserts, but comically useless for salsa. If you grow this crop--and we think everyone should--be sure you're getting Physalis ixocarpa and nothing else.
(P. pruinosa is the species that includes the ground cherry, the husk tomato, the strawberry tomato, and the dwarf Cape gooseberry; P. peruviana is the Cape Gooseberry, Husk Tomato, Goldenberry, Poha, Ground Cherry, Gooseberry Tomato, and Ground Cherry; P. heterophylla is the downy ground cherry, or clammy ground cherry; and P. philadelphica is the Tarahumara, Tepehuan, and Zuni tomatillos--smaller, wild, semi-cultivated types. The familiar decorative Chinese/Japanese Lantern plant is actually P. franchetii, also known as Winter Cherry or Strawberry Tomato.)
We were pleasantly surprised to find that this useful and pleasing vegetable, despite our associating it with tropical climates, is robust in cool weather (indeed, it seems to be remarkably robust relative to almost everything except actual frost). One home gardener has written--
"I trialed six different kinds last summer and each bore at least 15 pounds of fruit, in a drought no less. For a plant native Central and South America, tomatillos are remarkably easy to grow in cooler climes, as my zone 6A garden attests. One gardener to whom I gave seeds had fine luck with them on the prairies of central Saskatchewan, three zones north of me. If tomatillos weren't frost-tender, they'd take over the surface of the planet."
Vital note: Tomatillos are self-sterile, so always plant at least two! (So that's why the darn thing didn't fruit . . . .)
Although growers have made sporadic attempts to improve the tomatillo by selection, little has been accomplished, and the tomatillo remains a crop with great variablility in plant habit, fruit size, earliness, and other characteristics. There are only a couple of formally recognized cultivars, and most of those U.S. seedsmen who do offer tomatillos at all still usually offer a generic "tomatillo". But there are "strains" that are pretty well recognized--perhaps true cultivars that have recently been identified or selected out: one specialist house, for example, offers five named tomatillo types.
Of those you are likely to see in seedsmen's catalogues, the commonest would be:
Anecdotal reports suggest that purple varieties, like the Di Milpa, have somewhat better flavor--sweeter and juicier--but there is no clear consensus; cultivars may not be crucial here, or it just may be that more exploration is needed.
The tomatillo has about the same needs as the tomato, and can be grown in about the same way (though it is hardier than the tomato). Recall, though, that the tomatillo is not self-fertile, so that you must have at least two plants to get any actual tomatillos. (Tomatillos are normally quite productive, and even exuberant salsa fans probably won't need more than a couple of plants.)
Though tomatillos are pretty hardy, we might as well plan on planting them out in our climate around June 1st, which is about our "last expected" (90% probability of none later) freeze date; that starts them bearing in early to middle July and lets their natural term, typically 120 days, run till about the end of September. Out here, freezes are quite rare before mid-September, and still unusual by its end. That means starting seedlings around May 1st.
Sow seed indoors, in good-sized peat pots, say 4 inches. Keep the pots as warm as you can till emergence, their ideal germinating temperature being in the middle to upper 80s. Allow about 4 weeks for indoor growth time (these fellows reportedly germinate quickly and grow rapidly).
Prepare their bed by deep digging, addition of organic material, and--as tests may show necessary--amendment with organic fertilizers. Tomatillos do best in a rich, loamy soil, though they're pretty tolerant (growing virtually as weeds in their native climate). A standard garden-soil pH of 6.5 to 6.8 works fine, but they can do well enough in anything from 6.0 to 7.0.
It is wise to use plastic mulch, and to set that mulch out a couple of weeks before transplant time to get the soil warmed. Plastic mulch also suggests drip irrigation, which is always a good thing; and row cover is advantageous as well in our climate.
Possibly because of the notorious variability of tomatillo plants, there seems wide disagreement about a good inter-plant spacing for them: the range offered runs from 15 to 24 inches. On the one hand, one wants them as close as practicable, to conserve garden space and to encourage the necessary cross-pollination; on the other hand, one doesn't want the plants competing for sun and space. We used 24 inches and were glad we did--they bushed out quite a bit.
Plastic mulch (applied a couple of weeks before your expected transplant date), row cover, and drip irrigation--the usual warm-weather-crop adjuncts--are all advisable. So too are cages (real tomato cages--see the article here on tomatoes--not those wimpy little conical frames they sell in stores).
The tomatillo is a low-growing, sprawling bush plant, usually not more than 2 feet high. That can make two things awkward: watering and weeding. For watering, drip irrigation is an easy and inexpensive answer. As to weeding, use of plastic mulch renders the question moot. Water well, as for tomatoes.
If you used row cover, get it off as soon as temperatures allow, so the plants can be pollinated by bees. Do recall that the plants don't like actual freezes, but are otherwise pretty temperature-hardy.
If, as it grows, a plant is spreading too much (which caging minimizes), you can pinch off the more aggressive branch's tips.
Time to maturity is reported differently by different sources, ranging from "first harvest is generally 70 to 80 [days] from seeding" to "mature fruit are produced in about 120 days." That may not be as contradictory as it sounds, for commercial harvest is often of fruit not fully mature. Tomatillo fruits need to be hand-selected and harvested daily as the plant approaches maturity: tomatillos are not fully ripe till the fruit begins to break through the husk. (The husks split, but don't fall off, as the fruits mature.)
If you want to pick earlier than at full maturity, select fruits about 1¼ inches in diameter; by harvesting before full maturity, you can spread the harvest period out over perhaps two months. Commercial growers try to harvest when the fruits are well-formed and have substantially filled the husk, but are still bright in color (overmature fruit are light in color or yellowish, and it is said that those should be avoided as being sweeter and thus undesirable for most standard tomatillo uses). The purple varieties are said to grow significantly smaller fruits, but they grow more and so produce about the same net weight per plant--but use your head with respect to picking sizes, depending on the type you're growing.
Besides any links presented above on this page, the following ought to be especially helpful.
Plants For a Future Database: Tomatillo - tons of data on the vegetable, and links to lots more
Tomatillos: Salsa's Secret Ingredient - an excellent overview of tomatillos, including sound and relevant gardening information; the page also briefly discusses some tomatillo relatives often mistaken for tomatillos
Tomatillo - a page of history, biology, and other useful and interesting tomatillo information
Tomatillo - a Potential Vegetable Crop for Louisiana- despite the title, of general interest: much detailed botanical and cultural information
Tomatillo - a sound general discussion covering many aspects of tomatillo culture
Tomatillos are members of the prodigiously useful Solanaceae (or nightshade) family, as are tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, and eggplants, among others. Some botanists unite this species with P. philadelphica, saying that it arose from P. philadelphica through cultivation (probably true, but possibly irrelevant).
The tomatillo is native to Central America, and was used by the Aztecs in pre-Columbian times. In fact, there is archaeological evidence of its use as a food in the valley of Tehuacán in the centuries from 900 B.C. to A.D. 1540. Before the European arrival, the tomatillo was used far more than the tomato, but eventually the latter came to dominate, except in some rural areas where the tomatillo is still preferred over the tomato.
The ancestral wild tomatillo was domesticated in Mexico, then carried back by the Europeans on their arrival in the New World. It enjoyed some popularity till being eclipsed by the tomato.
If you've ever wondered just where The Tomatillo Capital of the World is--and who amongst us has not, at one time or another?--it's El Fornio, California, or so it says here.
If you find this site interesting or useful, please link to it on your site by cutting and pasting this HTML:
The <a href="http://growingtaste.com/"><b>Growing Taste</b></a> Vegetable-Gardening Site
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