The Tomatillos Are Loaded With Fruit

The tomatillos are as prolific as I was led to believe. It might be a little hard to tell in this picture, but there are lots of fruits on each plant.

I've never grown tomatillos before and I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew what they looked like ripe at the grocery, but had no idea what the intermediate stages were like. This is my chance to figure it out.

Tomatoes are pretty easy to figure out: The blossom cluster forms, the blossoms open, the blossom self-pollinates, the sepals curl way back and the tomato fruit starts to grow. If the sepals don't curl back, then the flower probably didn't pollinate and the blossom will close, dry up
and fall off. Sometimes it doesn't pollinate, but it also doesn't close and fall off. These are interesting because the ovum tends to swell a little bit, but it doesn't really grow that much.

Tomatillos are harder to figure out. It's hard to tell how the fruits are progressing, because they are shrouded by a husk. The progression goes something like this: blossom forms, blossom opens, blossom pollinates from the other plant, blossom closes a little, the husk grows crazy fast and the rest is a mystery :) I hope the fruit is growing in there, but you can't tell.

The husks are very cool looking. I spotted one that looked like a little hot-air balloon - the dried up blossom looked like a little basket hanging down. It lost the basket and totally changed shape by the next day when I had the camera with me. The plant with the more vine-like growth has really great looking husks (left below). The other plant with the large leaves and more vertical growth has husks that aren't as variegated (right below).

But the nights are getting cold around here. We're looking at the low-40s for the rest of September and down into the low-30s the first week of October. I'm determined to get some ripe fruit off these plants. So I think my plan is to bring the tomatillos plants into the garage at night and put them out during the day.