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Tomatillo

serrano

serrano

I've started few green tomatillo this year. They are very unpopular plants here so i'd like to know - when are they ripe and is it dangerous to eat them unripe?
 
Apparently you need to grow at least 2 plants, better 3. Reason being that they require cross pollination.
 
Other than that, all I can say is that they are popularly used in salsa verde.
 
I am not so sure they need 100% to be at least 2 plants, I think this was discussed here in other topic. But growing only one plant will not give you enough fruits to make a salsa verde, unless you harvest some, keep them till other ripe, and so. Or you make a small quantity of salsa verde...
They are ripe when the fruit will fill the husk (initially the husk looks empty), sometime the husk will "crack". Not so familiar with tomatillos, I am growing them in the last 3-4 years in my garden, but mostly empiric, so to say. When over-ripe, they became pale green, a bit yellowish green, and later they crack too. I am using mostly for salsa verde, but can be eaten fresh too.
No idea if eating them unripe, but why to do this? However, I used them also a bit before ripe completely, and had no problem
 
I've had one plant in the past and it produced very well but fruits not quite filled the husk so i didn't ate them.
Those ones i have now are from the seeds i saved so i guess they were ripe after all. I just wanted to test tchem for germination because i assumed they went old and no point to keep them in stash. Turned out i was wrong. They are called cisinieros tomatillo as i remember.
 
Crap.  I only had one Cape Gooseberry plant come up, I just need seeds from it.  They have complete flowers so I don't see why they'd require cross pollination.  Oh well.  This is the first year I'm growing any Physalis species and neither of the two that I have are tomatillos, go figure.
 
I grew 4 plants last year and they produced well. I have 6 started for this year, but I'll only keep 4 or so.

The fruit will fill the husk when they are ready to be picked, but they tasted the same when they were small as well. I pulled plenty of Immature ones at the end of the season last year.
 
I usually grow a dozen or so plants for my wife who likes to make gallons of a salsa verde-type base that gets used in salsas, green chili, taco sauce.  The purple varieties have a totally different flavor and taste, for lack of a better descriptor, like "purple" - that same purple flavor you get in other anthocyanin containing fruits like grapes or blueberries.  Interesting, but not particularly useful or versatile for culinary purposes.  I've also grown a "mexican strain" that grew significanlty larger, yellow fruits with a sweeter, less "lime-y" flavor but they seemed much more prone to cracking and rotting and didn't keep well on the ground like the standard, smaller, green tomatilla verde does.  The normal green ones keep very well in their husks, so much so that I've never actually "picked" one off a plant.  Instead, at the end of the season I cut all the stems off at ground level and shake the plants so they drop the remaining ripe fruits.  By that time there are literally thousands of husked-fruits already covering the ground and we rake them up and throw them into buckets of water to wash off dirt and soften the husks so they come off easier.  A dozen plants, if allowed to sucker-out and grow freely, will produce a couple 5 gallon buckets worth of fruit.
 
you do need 2 plants, and a cutting/clone grown separately won't do it.
 
Last season I had let three plants grow out of about 20 that had self seeded the three grew very large and produced fruit that were crosses of a large yellow variety and a purple type and maybe one that is supposed to taste some what like a pineapple. they have been self seeding for 3 or 4 years I really like them besides making Salsa Verde they make a savory sweet jam that goes well on fish, pork or chicken. In the right conditions the plants can get quite large and produce more than you want at times.  I use them both in the firm unripe stage and semi soft ripe stage  If you give them some support like you would tomatoes the plants will do the best as the limbs split and break easily. this year I plan to get another variety to add to the gene pool. 
 
wildseed57 you might have answered the question I came in here to ask with your post
 
If I have 5 different species of Physalis would that be sufficient for cross pollination if I have at least one plant of each?  I have P. peruviana, P. pruinosa, P. ixocarpa, P. alkekengi, and P. philadelphica and the only plants I currently have up are P. peruviana (one plant) and P. pruinosa (one plant).  I know if I want seeds I might have to isolate a flower or hand pollinate it with its own if that doesn't work but...(?)
 
I think I might start the other three species and see what happens.
 
 
wildseed57 said:
Last season I had let three plants grow out of about 20 that had self seeded the three grew very large and produced fruit that were crosses of a large yellow variety and a purple type and maybe one that is supposed to taste some what like a pineapple. they have been self seeding for 3 or 4 years I really like them besides making Salsa Verde they make a savory sweet jam that goes well on fish, pork or chicken. In the right conditions the plants can get quite large and produce more than you want at times.  I use them both in the firm unripe stage and semi soft ripe stage  If you give them some support like you would tomatoes the plants will do the best as the limbs split and break easily. this year I plan to get another variety to add to the gene pool. 
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Hi most of what you have is closely related and should interbreed with each other, If you want pure seeds you will need to isolate them or bag off the flowers after you hand pollinate. as I'm not worried about them crossing I just let them do their thing.
 
serrano said:
I've started few green tomatillo this year. They are very unpopular plants here so i'd like to know - when are they ripe and is it dangerous to eat them unripe?
Click to expand...
 
You can eat them under-ripe but they don't taste as good (kinda chalky to me).  Better a lil unripe if you're going to pickle them though.  You can tell the ripe ones because they will 'fill out' the husk and when ready it's normal for the bottom of the husk to split and reveal the tomatillo inside.  They are indeed prolific, 3 plants is all we need for a year's worth of salsa verde, soups n stews, etc.
 
Helvete said:
If I have 5 different species of Physalis would that be sufficient for cross pollination if I have at least one plant of each?
Click to expand...
Is there someone with better Google skills than me that can find proof that different variations of tomatillo's can pollinate each other? (Not Physalis, but tomatillo's, like the purple one, the regular one and the Queen of Malinalco.) I have about four kinds and I really don't want to have three plants of each.

I'm already limited on space... 😇
 
I used to grow different tomatillo varieties and planted everything together (greens and purples) and they always gave more fruit than we could process. As I understand it, they are all the same species (Physalis ixocarpa). But you can't save seeds...
 
Downriver said:
Yep, you need more than one plant, but variety doesn't matter.
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Back in the days, I sold my surplus tomatillo plantlets, and I can confirm that those who didn't believe me that they had to buy at least two plantlets, consistently ended up with zilch tomatillos. Also, Ratatouille, if you didn't already know: provide support for the branches. Plants can be absolutely loaded with fruit, and branches can break during summer storms.
 
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