Tomatillos, Physalis

[littleminnie]

I have some questions.

First I am thinking I should put in a few tomatillo plants. Baker has the purple one and it says 68 days, much sweeter than green. Whereas Pinetree says Purple Tomatillo: 100 days, later and tangier than green.
Which is right? Should I grow purple or green or what? Are they worth growing? I am worried about having fruit no one wants. Are they sellable at market or for CSAs?

So can someone simply explain the physalis types so that I can get them straight? I grew ground cherries last year and would like to know how all the similar Physalis stack up. Thanks.

[oxbowfarm]

Basically there are tomatillos and ground cherries, don't ask about scientific names because Physalis is a genus that the splitters have had a drunken brawl in and there's like a million "species". Tomatillos get big and split their husk traditionally you pick them green when they are sour and use them for salsa etc. When they get ripe they get much softer and sweeter. Huge crazy sprawling plants.
Ground cherries you are familiar with and usually people treat them more like a fruit/berry than a vegetable. Small to medium sprawling plants.

I sell a decent amount of tomatillos, but I sell in a college town with a lot of foodies. You have to judge your customers. Think they want to experiment a lot with Mexican cooking? Then again, a couple tomatillos are pretty productive so you could get your feet wet. I think I remember that you already do ground cherries.

As far as purple vs green goes I prefer the large fruited green varieties like Cisneros or Plaza Gigante. They even have a hybrid tomatillo out someplace. The purples are just too small to make them worth picking IMO, its a minor crop.

[steev]

I like them sliced thin in a salad. Ate them yesterday stewed with onion and eggplant; yum.

[ferdzy]

Tomatillos are used more like tomatoes, where ground cherries are used more as a fruit.

I wouldn't plant too many. Americans are probably more familiar with them than Canadians, but around here I haven't been able to give them away.

[ottawagardener]

I was just going to say that the purple ones would be sweeter in part because they are probably ripe when used whereas the 'green' ones are actually yellow ones that are used underripe. Yeah, people aren't aware of how to use them but I have seen at least one CSA selling small baskets of them.

[diane]

I'm not sure how useful this will be for those of you who sell.

My tomatillos last for a very long time - well into June. I keep them spread one layer deep in a cool room in the house, the same place I keep squash (which stay good for more than a year).

[hortusbrambonii]

The physalisberries they sell over here in Belgium are cape gooseberries (P. peruviana), used for decorating desserts and cakes and stuff. That one and the ground cherry (P. pruinosa) are considered fruits; the tomatillo (P. ixocarpa or whatever) is used as a vegetable and (as far as I know) eaten unripe in Mexico and used for salsa and stuff...

There are white/yellow tomatillos and purple ones, but I have the idea that unripe they taste the same. I do have seed to share, but that's a mix of both...

[wildseed57]

I grew some purple ones last year and caged them so that they would not take over the garden, my grand daughters like them raw and like the purple ones the best, I like them all and use them in sauces, jams, salsa Verde. Mole?(roasted chillies, garlic, onions, tomatillos, salt, chocolate and lime juice for a yummy dark sauce. Grill peel and eat along side some steak picante and flour tacos, anything you can do with a tomato you can do with a tomatoes with one or two limits. I think the larger green one have a better flavor when ripe but to me they all tast good

[steev]

'Kay, Wildseeds57, you've gone far past the "casual" stage, to the "partisan" stage! Welcome to "tomatillo heaven". Those excellent-keeping little suckers are SO good, whether raw or cooked. Raw in a salad or cooked in a salsa verde, it's all good! Teach those grandchildren what's good food!

[johninfla]

P. peruviana (aguaymanto) grows really well for me here in north central Florida. My kids get tired of picking them but they sure love to eat them! I had a friend that lives about five miles away who grew tomatillos and they did really well for him. I have never knowingly eaten a tomatillo BUT I see a lot of them in the grocery.

John

[wildseed57]

Yes those little babies can save your life as they are very high in nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants. Don't let the sticky waxy film on the outside throw you off it washes off easily and when blanched the peel comes right off and the inside turns into a ready sauce that just needs a few herbs that will taste good on anything, great with chicken or just about any meat grilled goat even. I was born in Ray Arizona at the Ray Copper mine the town is long gone, but my dad had a small garden that he grew tomatoes, tomatillos, wild chiltepin peppers and dry bean melons, squash and white sweet corn. he and his friends would drive up to tea cup mountain and shoot wild goats which would be put on a open spit and roasted, I can still smell the meat being cooked and put on homemade tortillas that you could put a whole meal on, topped with tomato, onions and garlic with a green sauce made from tomatillos. The Chiltepins peppers grow wild a little south of us and in the fall my dad would go with his friends and hand pick wild peppers for the table and extra money. My dad was a Blaster and made a good wage at the mine, but as he grew up during the great depression he liked hunting and fishing and could grow a decent garden in sand and copper tailings and if there was not enough water for the garden he would use Grey water and pee to keep things growing. I learned my love of gardening from him, So I'm trying not only to pass that love on to my grand daughters, but any kid or person that will walk over and stop to look at my garden. I'm big on Gorilla gardening spreading seeds along trails and creek banks and even old lots of land that have been taken over by weeds. Wild peppers, heirloom winter squash, cherry tomatoes, ground cherries and tomatillos will pretty much grow on their own if the seeds get stuck in the ground. Very few people will take a second look. So taking a bag and a short walk and you have a meal.
Sorry I didn't mean to hijack the post.
George W.

[steev]

Good hijack.

[oxbowfarm]

Forgot a tomatillo on the windowsill. Looks like even green tomatillos will turn a little purple if you give them enough time. This is Plaza Latina Grande , normally a big green tomatillo.



I pulled the seeds, you can see that a few of them were starting to germinate. I'm frankly astonished this tomatillo kept so long. It was on the corner of the windowsill about 4 feet from our wood stove. So it was getting overheated on one side and over-cooled from the window on the other.

[ottawagardener]

I've had physalis keep until the following year on occasion though they do start to shrivel.

[oxbowfarm]

Yes, I've had them store quite a long time, but usually under much better storage conditions than what this one had. I had set it there with some tomatoes to ripen for seed saving and then processed all the tomatoes and forgot about this guy.