Balloon Fiesta is here and it's bloody cold

Mother nature always knows when Balloon Fiesta comes to town. The first week in October is always colder than the rest of October. Sunday night will be our first hard freeze of the Fall here in the mountains. They are predicting mid-20s here, which is always a couple of degrees high. It will be low-20s and the end of the tomato season.

I have been bringing the tomatillos in at night for the last couple of weeks. They are doing quite well. I hope to keep them going until the end of November. At that point, it will be so cold in the morning that I won't be able to put them out in the morning before work without the threat of freezing.

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.

Catching Up on the Tomatoes

It's been a while since I've written anything. There hasn't been much going on. Just eating tomatoes for lunch and making sauce.

I thought I was loosing tomatoes to BER after the Phoenix trip. The tomatoes were wilted and pretty sad looking when we got back. I did suffer some genuine BER, but I also got hit by some sort of bacteria or fungus. Here are some pics. Notice that it is throughout the fruit. I guess it would eventual take over the whole fruit.

I have tossed a lot of them. Some are OK when I cut them open. They go in the sauce pot. Haven't eaten any fresh.

Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my first year. End of year summary coming soon.

My Tomatillo Plants Don't Look Related

These are my two tomatillo plants next to each other. Click to see them larger.


The left plant is very much a sprawling vine. If not for the cage, it would just sprawl on the ground. The plant on the right has thick stems and holds itself up. The leaves are the most striking difference. The sprawler has small medium green leaves and the other has large dark green leaves. Weird.

Hornworms Suck

What else is there to say? I caught a big one before he could eat the whole plant, but he ate most of the top half. Luckily, it was Celebrity #6 which is the straight bucket container and as a result is the smallest plant with the smallest fruit. On the other hand, I want some fruit off Celebrity #6, because it is the only straight bucket. Does that effect flavor?

And the wasp larva got a small one before he could even get started.


Here's the big one on a branch that has been stripped of leaves and a small fruit that was starting to blush.

So How Do They Taste?

So blogging and taking pictures and fawning over tomato plants is fun and all, but the whole point is tomato sandwiches. BLTs. Tomato and cheese. Just plain tomato on toast. That's what I'm talking about.

Early Girls are not that great. They go from hard to mealy. Not very sweet, but go pretty good with mayo. And the skin is annoyingly thick. If the tomatoes were truly early, I'd let the rest go. But they aren't that early. A week earlier than Celebrity and Big Boy? I'll probably try something else early next year.

Celebrities are pretty good. They are a little sweet. Not too juicy for a sandwich. The meat is tender and there aren't too many seeds. Really good on a BLT. These also get pretty big for the size of the plant. Pretty good 5 gallon container plant. Will probably plant a few next year and take better care of them.

Big Boys are pretty good too. A nice balance of acid and sugar. Kind of juicy, but not too bad. Based entirely on the name, I was expecting larger fruit. They remind me of the Jetstars that my Dad grows. Mmm, good.

Bigger Big Boys

I complained here that the Big Boys weren't very big. Well, as the season has progressed both the Early Girls and Big Boys are producing larger fruit. Nothing approaching 1 pound, but around 6 ounces. A decent slicer.