|
Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 13, 2021 15:38:31 GMT -6
Earlier this year, member hedgeapple mentioned that tomatillos were a great crop for him when he gardened in Texas. I was not too familiar with them but got a bunch at the grocery store and made a batch of salsa to see if the family liked them. After reading up on their cultivation, I decided to give them a try in the fall garden. I had considered just obtaining seeds from a grocery store fruit, but I decided to go for a named variety, so picked Rio Grande. I planted only two seeds in large pots earlier in the summer. One plant grew and thrived; the other struggled, but was holding its own until one day it completely disappeared. I had noticed chewing damage earlier but hadn’t expected complete annihiliation. I don’t know what the culprit was, but I was not happy. My one remaining tomatillo was looking good and starting to show buds, but I had no companion plant for cross pollination. I quickly planted two more pots of seeds as I wanted to have two plants mature at the same time. Well, once again one plant took off, while the second struggled, but at this point I have three tomatillo plants all blooming. They’re small, medium, and large, and make me think of Goldilocks and the Three Bears when I’m in the garden. We’re in for possible heavy rain due to Tropical Storm Pamela heading our way. I’m not sure how the husks will fare if we get torrential downpours. I hope they’re stronger than they look. I can peek inside the larger ones and see the beginnings of small fruits. It’s really fun to see them growing this way. A whole new experience for me.
|
|
|
Post by hedgeapple on Oct 13, 2021 16:15:21 GMT -6
Yum! Looking good, and hope they make it!
|
|
|
Post by macmex on Oct 14, 2021 7:04:10 GMT -6
Our family adores tomatillos. We use them for salsa and also cut them up to saute in stir fries or add to stews. Unfortunately, the local wild relative, which produces almost nothing of use, also harbors a pest which destroys tomatillo fruit before it can be harvested.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 16, 2021 5:43:02 GMT -6
The tomatillo plants looked untroubled by the rain (over four inches over the course of several hours). I do notice a few very small round holes in the outside of some husks. I hope that’s not a sign that I’m going to lose my fruit. I’m really looking forward to a harvest as long as we don’t get cold too soon. We’re forecast for temperatures down to the forties this weekend.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 17, 2021 22:22:37 GMT -6
Our family adores tomatillos. We use them for salsa and also cut them up to saute in stir fries or add to stews. Unfortunately, the local wild relative, which produces almost nothing of use, also harbors a pest which destroys tomatillo fruit before it can be harvested.
I had a local, wild relative once, who produced almost nothing of any use and harbored pests, and often destroyed things too. I was finally able to run him off before he became too much of a nuisance.
|
|
|
Post by macmex on Oct 18, 2021 10:38:41 GMT -6
You had me going for a minute!
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 18, 2021 14:41:19 GMT -6
George, You made my day with that reply!
I've noticed the same thing you mentioned a couple of posts back. The local pest that our wild tomatillos harbor likes to eat the friut inside just as much as we do. (maybe even more than we do). Everytime I see a wild tomatillo on a hike, some little bug has already destroyed the fruit inside the husk before I get a chance to try one for myself.
That's always disheartening, but it probably attests to the high quality of our local variety. Too bad we may never know for sure, because of the fact that we never actually get to taste them for ourselves.
The only wild ones I've ever seen were tiny in comparison to the store-bought variety. Wouldn't it be interesting to know the process by which the domestic seeds were developed over the decades? To think that some caveman may have found a wild fruit and taken time to save seeds astounds me. We owe a lot to our ancestors and thier efforts to domesticate wild plants for garden variety usage.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 28, 2021 15:28:41 GMT -6
A tiny one just fell on my head this morning when I bumped it while watering. It was softening up, and I just ate it after snapping the picture. Yum! That makes me impatient for the others to mature. (I hope they’ll be bigger than this one.). Thankfully this little fruit didn’t show signs of pests. I hope they’ll be able to handle a couple of nights in the forties. The days are still warm.
|
|
|
Post by macmex on Oct 28, 2021 15:36:17 GMT -6
Yum! I'm sure they were simply selected by people in Central America. When we lived in the Sierra north of Puebla we had the semi domesticated version growing in our field behind the house. They also sold them in the market, in the indigenous part of the market. Everyone said that if you didn't have them on your place you get a couple of handfuls and throw them out in your field... and they'd come back from then on. They do too! At least in that environment.
The semi domesticated type is very small, only slightly larger than our wild form, here. They have the BEST flavor, even better than any larger version sold in a seed catalog, but they are time consuming to process. Just like handmade tortillas, I fear they will fall out of common use because of economics.
|
|