![]() ![]() I’m not a fan of hot sauces so I use peppers such as ‘Poblano’ or ‘ Pasilla Bajio‘, which have a more complex flavour and lend only a little heat.I put onions, garlic (sometimes), peppers, and fresh cilantro into my homegrown sauce.I also cook vegetables, chicken, and fish in it and serve over rice. ![]() Salsa verde can be used for more than a chip dip or taco sauce. I planted them there and was surprised to find how well they integrated into the bed as an ornamental. In 2012 I had two tomatillo plants and absolutely nowhere to put them save a bare patch in a new perennial bed I had just dug up. The purple varieties including ‘Purple de Milpa’ and ‘Purple’ are the prettiest with a bit of purple in the stems, leaf veins, and husks. They produce pretty yellow flowers and dangly papery lanterns on crooked stems. They can be trained onto stakes or allowed to grow wild. Tomatillo plants are a lot more decorative than tomatoes. Grow one plant per pot (unless you use an incredibly large bin like I did).Mulch containers with a thick layer of straw to keep the soil from drying out too quickly.16″+ deep containers are best, although I have had success, but smaller yields with 12″ pots as long as I was careful not to let them dry out.That fall I enjoyed my best tomatillo harvest ever. Because the bin was so oversized, I was able to plant both plants into it with no repercussions. I set the bin into a warm and sunny, south-facing spot. I drilled lots of holes in the bottom, filled it with potting soil and a bit of duck manure, and mulched the top with straw. A few years ago I purchased a VERY large plastic storage bin from the housewares section of a department store for about $6-8. I typically grow tomatillos in containers and have had amazing success in some very difficult conditions. Harvest when the papery husks are filled and bursting open.The fruit is heavy so I suggest staking securely (I use bamboo poles formed into a tripod). Staking keeps plants compact in tight spaces.You may allow plants to sprawl along the ground, but they are more likely to suffer insect and critter damage.Like tomatoes, fertilize with a nitrogen based product like fish emulsion early in the season and then back off when flower buds appear.Grow at least two plants to ensure successful cross-pollination and larger yields.Plant transplants outdoors about 2 weeks or so after the last frost.Start seeds earlier than tomatoes to ensure a good harvest, about 8 weeks before the last frost.Tomatillos need a long season (80-120 days depending on the variety).For that reason you are better off tossing them into the compost and starting your seeds much earlier indoors. They’re so tough I’ve had plants come up in the shallow gravel covering the tarpaper part of my old apartment roof! Unfortunately, I have found that because tomatillos need a very long growing season (80-120 days), these self-sown volunteers come up too late to produce a real crop. If you’ve grown tomatillos once, chances are high that they’ll pop up on their own for years thereafter. All-in-all, their papery husks seem to act as a convenient cover that seems to protect growing fruit from any possible invaders. They are less prone to diseases or pests-I’ve never had any problems at all, except with cutworms, which can be a problem in-ground. However, I’ve found that tomatillos are actually quite a bit easier than their finicky cousins, requiring less water and fertilizer to stay happy. ![]() They are both sun worshippers with fairly similar needs. If you can grow tomatoes, you can grow tomatillos. Since then, growing tomatillos and canning up my own homegrown salsa verde has been a part of my yearly routine. They are sweeter, tarter, more flavourful, and complex. Like their botanical cousin the tomato (both plants are nightshade or Solanaceae family plants), tomatillos are infinitely better tasting when grown at home organically. I honestly believed for a time that store-bought was good enough and couldn’t be improved until I grew my own and learned just how wrong I was. Back at home I started buying salsa verde in cans at a Latin American food store in Toronto’s Kensington Market. At first I thought the tangy, green sauce we were served with quesadillas was made of green tomatoes, until I did some research and discovered it was a different fruit entirely. I first learned of this tomato-like fruit on a trip to southern Mexico many years ago. Tomatillos ( Physalis ixocarpa) have only recently gained popularity as a backyard garden crop across North America and are definitely worth growing if you’re a Mexican food nut. You can listen to that episode over here. We spoke at length about growing tomatillos as well as other edible crops of the same genus ( Physalis). This week I was a guest on Margaret Roach of A Way to ‘s radio show. ![]()
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