Grow a Tomato Cousin – the Tomatillo
By Vanessa Richins
As a Southern California native, I’ve long known about the existence of the tomatillo.
This tomato relative is used in Mexican cooking a lot.
If you’ve ever had Chile Verde or Salsa Verde, you’ve eaten the tomatillo.
Other name for the tomatillo include ground cherries, toma verde, and husk tomato. The last comes because the fruit is covered with a papery husk. The most common color you will see is green (verde in Spanish), but there are also varieties that are yellow and purple.
If you already know how to grow tomatoes, you’re in luck – tomatoes are grown the same way. They’re a warm season vegetable that you should start inside about 6-8 weeks before your average last frost date. If you don’t know your date, you can locate it through the National Climactic Data Center.
About 1-2 weeks before your frost date, start hardening off your seedlings by taking them outside in the shade, starting with 1/2 hour and increasing the time and amount of sun daily until it’s time to plant. Place them in a spot that is tilled with compost added.
Slugs and snails like tomatillos, so staking will help protect the fruits. They are also subject to cutworms, as well as fungi and blights.
In 90-100 days, you can harvest the tomatillos when the husks become brown and they start splitting open.There is evidently an oily substance on the surface, so be sure to wipe that off before cooking.
Have you grown tomatillos? What’s your favorite recipe?
June 9th, 2009 at 3:14 am
We LOVE tomatillos! We grew four HUGE purple tomatillos last year in a 5 gallon pot and had salsas from the end of summer through the fall. This year, we are doing entire blocks of green tomatillos in our plots. No WAY am I running out of these again! LOL
June 9th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
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