Comments on: What’s a Tomatillo?

By: Gardening Tips to Bring in the New Year — Veggie Gardening Tips

Gardening Tips to Bring in the New Year — Veggie Gardening Tips — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:02:49 +0000

[...] Tomatillo and Ground Cherries are also unusual crops that you rarely find growing in backyard gardens, but they are pretty high up on Ira’s list. She enjoys using tomatillos for making salsa and recommends ground cherries for baking. Roselle, or Red Sorrel is a crop that I discovered on a trip to St Croix and have attempted to grow in my garden ever since. The tall shrub-like plant has grown well but never yielded flowers or fruits in my garden. Ira shared that they are day length sensitive and recommended that I try a variety that SESE carries. [...]

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:32:54 +0000

I’m listening to Daria and hoping she is right. We live in Ireland and I have three fine (purple) tomatillo plants outside, growing with the outdoor tomoato plants. They are flowering well and are producing a lovely husk but no fruit so far. So I hope patience will bring us late fruit. I guess we are far north and low temperature. So looking forward to cooking with them!

By: chad

chad — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:54:02 +0000

The reason they aren’t fruiting is that they are self-sterile. You need to plant at least two (preferably 3) to produce fruit.

By: Building a Raised Bed Garden in Shallow Soils — Veggie Gardening Tips

Building a Raised Bed Garden in Shallow Soils — Veggie Gardening Tips — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:33:14 +0000

[...] cauliflower, broccoli, fancy arugula, curly chard, carrots, cilantro, red top turnips, rhubarb and tomatillos. Other veggies up on the knoll garden include the most gorgeous kale I’ve ever seen, four [...]

By: Kenny Point

Kenny Point — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:47:24 +0000

Hi Rachel, your tomatillo plants will produce well even without caging. At this stage it may be difficult to cage the plants but you could use stakes or a tomato trellis to help provide some support.

By: rachel

rachel — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:47:45 +0000

should I cage my tomatillo plants now even though they are quite large already? Will they produce just as well if I dont cage them??

By: Mike Akers

Mike Akers — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:16:51 +0000

Several years ago I planted a couple tomatillo plants and had a huge amount (no real idea what to do with them…). this year I decided to do it again, so I bought ONE…, when it was about 4ft tall and lots of blossoms and bees and NO fruit, I looked up growing and much to my dismay, discovered you need at least TWO!!!!

I went on a mad search and found two more, unfortunately the only place left in the garden was on the shady side of my 4ft tomatillo… I got 5 tomatillos to set, then the new plants started climbing to the sun, and shortly caught up… but still, lots of flowers, bees and no more fruit… Also my peppers were flowering with very little fruit. My tomatoes had set fruit early but seemed to be slow in setting anymore. I started reading more and came to the conclusion my feeding program (steer manure, epsom salt and miracle grow) was to high in nitrogen.

Miraculously my question was shortly answered by a radio ad.. Zamzows Trive Blossom… (I live in Boise, Idaho. Zamzow’s is a local garden center) It is a relatively low nitrogen/high phosphate fertilizer (7-28-4) diluted and sprayed on the foliage. I applied it 9 days ago and went from 5 to a couple hundred set on my now 8ft tall tomatillo plants, not to mention, my tomatoes and peppers are setting a lot of fruit now….. ie, to much nitrogen…BAD

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:42:41 +0000

I have 2 tomatillo plants growing. One is sprawling real wide and the other plant is over 5 feet. Lots o fruit on them so I will wait to see what happens. This is the first time growing them. They were on clearance and didn’t look like they would make it. So I thought I would give it a try.