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Post by seedywen on Jan 30, 2010 20:42:08 GMT -5
Two years ago, brought back seeds from Mexico, of several deep purple tomatillos. Planted about 15 green tomatillos at one end of the row and 15 purple tomatillo plants at the other end.
All the tomatillo plants were loaded with tomatillos by mid-August.
Only. No purple tomatillos. The tomatillos from the seeds of the saved purple tomatillo seeds had slightly purple veins on the husks but the fruit itself was green.
Knowledge? Theories?
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Post by castanea on Jan 30, 2010 22:32:43 GMT -5
That's a really interesting question. I have had a similar experience. Tomatillos are very diverse genetically and self incompatible so seedlings are almost always different than the parents. But you would think you would get some purple fruited plants among your seedlings. Very little breeding work has been done with tomatillos compared to most other crops so I don't think they are even sure about how genes for color are expressed.
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Post by orflo on Jan 31, 2010 0:02:55 GMT -5
Are you convinced that the seeds you brought from Mexico were 'true-to-type' seeeds? As Castanea mentioned, tomatillos are outbreeders, if they crossed with a green tomatillo the dominant colour could have become green. But I'm not sure which colour gene is dominant here. Even with hand-pollination I get some off-types from time to time, mostly different-shaped fruits. I don't remember I ever had a colour change on any of these plants.
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Post by mjc on Jan 31, 2010 0:35:33 GMT -5
Are you sure they were fully ripened?
Some of the purples don't actually get very purple until the husk comes off. If you pull the husk and let them sit a few days, they'll end up pretty much a uniform purple...but only if they are mostly ripe (husks starting to dry and or split).
Also, remember that yours came directly from Mexico, so they may have a longer season that you have in BC, especially the 'hot' season.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 31, 2010 10:48:33 GMT -5
I have been growing the variety Purple from SSE for past 3 years and find that in addition to being late many don't begin to turn color unless the husk breaks. Even then, some may be partially green. In fact, the photo in their catalog depicts such variations.
Martin
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Post by PatrickW on Jan 31, 2010 11:10:05 GMT -5
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Post by seedywen on Jan 31, 2010 11:53:32 GMT -5
Thanks for all your feedback. It would appear that the the 'purpleness' of tomatillos is not reliably attained for several factors.
Green tomatillos are weeds in my garden but I'd have to outsource the purple seeds. Will probably just stick with the green.
Have also recently resolved to stop growing tomatillos in rows, staked and mulched. Basically well cared for.
Why? When the weed tomatillos pop up everywhere, generally rogue them out. However this past summmer, there were gaps in my corn rows where weed tomatillos took root. Since there was space for them, decided just to leave them and see if they could compete with the corn for light and nutrition. Most productive tomatillos ever and near zero muss and fuss.
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Post by hiven on Feb 3, 2010 3:26:37 GMT -5
I grew purple tomatillo during 2007, seeds were from Baker Creek. My 3 plants were huge, they even flop over and sprawling on pebbles. They produce a bit over 2 kg in total. The colour was not purple as Baker Creek's picture, but rather very pale purple stained on green whitish peel (even when the husk dried). We tasted the fruit and find it a bit hard to accept, eversince I grow no more. I did get 2 plants growing as voluunter last year (most possibly from the compost pile) and the fruit were totally green.
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Post by Hristo on Feb 19, 2010 10:32:36 GMT -5
Purple tomatillos are interesting, but at purple stage (fully ripe and exposed to sun) the taste is not so good. The Sand Hill purple variety is purple and inside. For me the biggest drawbacks of the tomatillos is their sticky coating and bad flavour when ripe, though they can be very good when unripe.
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Post by Hristo on Feb 19, 2010 20:03:20 GMT -5
This is the SandHill purple variety: Attachments:
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Post by ottawagardener on Feb 23, 2010 8:05:19 GMT -5
I don't have as much experience with the purple tomatillo but Green Tomatillo from Maple Gardens and a large yellow/green tomatillo that I have tried (not sure the variety but it broke the paper husk around it when fully grown) were quite good ripe. I agree that the sticky coating is a bit annoying. The ones that stay in their paper shells store for quite a while on the counter for me.
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Post by hiven on Feb 23, 2010 9:27:08 GMT -5
Thanks, Hristo. I never tried the unripe stage yet, will give it a second chance this year and see if it can confinced us.
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Post by Hristo on Feb 23, 2010 16:22:41 GMT -5
Hmm, that is strange! All these years I thought that this is the main way to use them, since most varieties are quite bad flavoured when ripe (yes, some varieties I grow are barely good when ripe, but that is not enough for me).
Ok, now I wonder: How and when do you eat/use tomatillos?
I prefer them unripe (just before they start to ripen). At this stage of ripeness they can be very good tasting.
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Post by raymondo on Feb 24, 2010 7:05:02 GMT -5
Which species of Physalis are we talking about here? I have a couple that self seed. One is nice when ripe, quite sweet. The other tastes like bad cheese!
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Post by ottawagardener on Feb 24, 2010 8:41:52 GMT -5
I think mine were Physalis philadelphica, syn. P. ixocarpa (I'm assuming these really are syns). These did not taste like cheese but like sweet, crispy apple/tomato tasting even when yellow ripe.
I seem to have a particular tolerance of small fruited solanums though because I also like litchi tomato and sunberry (oh yeah and cherry tomatoes too...)
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