Tomatillo, the Mexican Physalis

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A rarer form of Physalis, tomatillo is a late summer vegetable that is easy to grow since the plant resists disease well. Tomatillo fruits are usually cooked and help soften the spice in many Central American recipes.

Tomatillo is a type of physalis that is much less common than its cousin Peruvian groundcherry. Native to Central America, fruits at first resemble normal tomatoes, but as they mature the color changes to becomes either yellow or purple depending on the variety. If you wish to add something truly original to your vegetable patch and to your meals, this annual is the perfect one for you!

Planting tomatillo

Preparing the soil

If your soil is very clayish (typical of heavy soil types), you’ll have to lighten it before planting tomatillo. In Fall, take the time to amend the soil. This entails nothing more than simply adding sand and soil mix to the soil. If you’ve got a chimney or wood stove, keep some of the spent ashes and spread them in the vegetable patch.

The next step you’ll have to perform whatever your soil type: till and turn the soil over to a depth of about a foot with a spading fork.

A spading fork is better than a normal spade since it doesn’t slice our worm friends in half.

In Spring, just before planting your tomatillo seedlings, turn the soil over one last time, but shallow work will do, only a few inches.

How to plant tomatillo

As is done for many plants in the vegetable patch, you’ll probably start with sowing. Get this first step done in Early spring-mid-spring:

• Sow the seeds in a mix of soil mix and sand,
• place your seedlings in the sun, away from the cold,
• and when seedlings have at least two leaves, transplant them to nursery pots and keep them warm,
• towards late spring, when risks of freezing are nil, transplant the seedlings to their definite growing bed, spacing them by at least 32 inches (80 cm).

Tomatillo is a typical summer vegetable, inasmuch as the soil needs to warm up before it can spread and grow well. Simply match the sowing and transplanting calendar with that of regular tomato.

Tomatillo, stage by stage

Tomatillo follows the same rhythm as a tomato plant: an early indoor start, a move outdoors once frost is out of the way, then a long trickle of fruit. Here is what happens when, and what you do at each point.

Matching this calendar to the one you already use for tomatoes is the simplest way to get the timing right.

Tomatillo varieties

The Physalis family numbers over 100 different species, but it’s often difficult to come across seeds for many of them.

Some varieties of tomatillo that are easier to find include:

• ‘Purple de Milpa’ – fruits turn a deep violet color when ripe, very juicy.
• ‘Cisneros’ – when ripe, fruits remain green. Among the largest, these fruits reach up to nearly 3 inches across (7 cm).

Grow only one variety if you intend to save seed, because tomatillos cross freely with each other and the offspring will be mixed.

Which tomatillo variety to choose

Tomatillos fall broadly into green-fruited types for salsa verde and purple or yellow ones with a sweeter, fruitier flavour. The table below sets out the varieties most often offered by seed catalogues in Britain and North America, so you can pick on colour, fruit size and ripening time.

Growing and care

There’s no need to prune or trim tomatillo. As for care, nothing more to do than just water each seedling regularly, without drowning them though (especially if the soil tends to retain water well).

Diseases and pests

Organic farming is clearly becoming a thing these days, and avoiding chemical pesticides is all the rage. A precious advantage of tomatillo is that it’s not vulnerable to diseases and pests at all…

• Avoid excess nitrogen, which pushes tomatillos toward leafy growth at the expense of fruit; note, though, that sparse fruit set more often reflects planting only one plant, since tomatillos are largely self-incompatible.
• Tomatillos form wide, brittle, heavily branching bushes that sprawl at least as much as many tomatoes, so a sturdy wide cage or several stakes helps keep their fruit-laden branches off the soil.
• Pick up fruits that drop and rot on the ground.
• Fallen fruit from seed-fertile plants can germinate where it lies, so depending on the species, cultivar and conditions, you may find yourself weeding volunteer seedlings out of that bed for several seasons.

Harvesting and keeping tomatillo

Depending on the planting date, expect first fruits to appear around Midsummer.

• Every few days, check your plants since fruits ripen continuously until Mid-autumn and late autumn, when the first frosts hit.

Once they’re picked, ripe fruits will keep for 1 to 2 weeks if provided with proper, dry storage.

• A tomatillo is ready when the fruit swells to fill its papery husk and the husk starts to split open.
• Leave the husks on for storage and keep the fruit in a single layer somewhere cool and airy; peel and rinse off the sticky coating only just before cooking.

Cooking with tomatillo

Tomatillo fruits are eaten cooked, because when raw they’re not particularly palatable. Don’t expect a tomato-like taste! The taste is both bland and slightly off, and some species leaves an uncomfortable coating in the mouth when raw.

Cooked, though, it’s something else alltogether. They’re perfect for many Mexican recipes such as salsa verde. Additionally, when mashed, tomatillo paste also softens spicy preparations.

• Charring tomatillos and chiles under a hot broiler until their skins blister yields a smokier, sweeter salsa, while simmering the same ingredients in water produces a sharper, brighter, more tart result.
• Surplus tomatillos freeze well once husked and washed, left whole in a sealed bag, ready to drop straight into a cooked sauce such as salsa verde later.