Tomatoes & friends
Tomatillo
Spring crop; plant 2+ for fruit.
- Indoors
- 6 to 8 wk (Jan to Feb)
- Outside
- Transplant mid Mar to mid Apr
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Deep weekly soak; easygoing once established
- Harvest
- Jun to Aug, husk splits
Care
- Water
- A deep weekly soak like the tomato bed, kept even while the plants settle; once established it forgives the dry spells that would cost a tomato its fruit, which is why the spring planting carries the salsa pot through summer.
- Sow
- In cells in January or February with the tomato bench: 2 seeds a quarter inch deep per cell, keep the stronger. Always at least two plants, since a lone tomatillo blooms all summer and sets nothing.
- Start inside
- Sow with the January tomato bench; it germinates and grows like a tomato. Under the lights 14 to 16 hours. Out with the tomatoes, from mid-March to mid-April, after frost and in warmed soil.
- Feed
- A shovel of compost worked in at planting carries the season. A lighter feeder than a tomato, so hold off unless growth stalls.
- Ready
- Pick when the papery husk splits and the berry swells to fill it, or slightly early while firm and bright green. Fruit often drops as it matures; gather the drops and ripen them in the husk.
- Trouble
- The classic failure is one lone plant: flowers for months, fruit never, so always plant two or more and let them sprawl near each other.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 15 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily through summer, twice a day in a heat wave, until it drains from the holes; give the bag afternoon shade in July and August.
- Feed
- A monthly top-dress, since every watering leaches the bag.
- Sow
- One plant per 15 gallon bag with a cage, and grow at least two bags so they can cross-pollinate.
Tomatillos own the spring salsa slot: set out after frost, they sprawl, take the heat, and fill papery husks for salsa verde from June into August.
Growing
Start with the January tomato bench and set out from mid-March to mid-April, always two or more plants so they can pollinate each other. Give each one a corner to sprawl; a cage delays the flop but nothing prevents it. No Texas source gives the tomatillo a fall planting window, so one spring planting is the whole schedule, and the plants shrug off the heat that stalls the tomatoes and fill husks into August, though extreme 95F-plus weeks can still thin fruit set. Harvest when the husk splits and the fruit fills it; fruit often drops as it matures, and ripening drops in the husk works fine.
Varieties
The Texas sheet lists 'Golden Nugget', 'Mexican Husk', 'Mayan Husk Tomato' and 'Rendidora', an improved cultivar; the plants grow in any soil suitable for tomatoes.
In the kitchen
Salsa verde, the reason it is in the garden: husked, rinsed of their stickiness, broiled soft with onion and jalapeno, then blitzed. It freezes without complaint, so the August surplus becomes winter enchilada sauce.