Tomatillos

strumjoughlamps

Benm39 said:

Tomatillos are great. Yes,  straggly as hell but should crop heavily and fresh tomatillos are a bugger to find so enjoy them.  Lotta salsa verde loveliness:)

Yep, beautiful with avocado 

TheMarlin

I’ve got about 10 purple tomatillo plants. They were planted a little late, flowered nicely, but not sure I’ll get much fruit.  Fingers crossed. 

Makes a fab chutney!!

Emp_Fab

So, are these Tomatdildos then ?

chillidoggy

• 1 1/2 pounds tomatillos

• 1/2 cup chopped white onion

• 2 cloves (or more) garlic , optional

• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves

• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

• 2 Jalapeño or serrano peppers , stemmed, seeded and chopped (you can use whole for more heat if you want)

• Salt to taste

  
  

  Looking forward to the harvest!

  
  

chillidoggy

And the best fish tacos recipe, lifted from Sparky’s Landing - 

Buttermilk batter fried dolphin*, pickled red onion, tomatillo sauce, cabbage, cilantro lime sauce, flour tortillas, rice & black bean side.

The best I’ve ever had.

*Dolphin in this case is Mahi-mahi, not Flipper.

Ddigger

Stop!

You are making me hungry.

The missus will be interested in this.  Thanks for posting! 

ThePrettyDamned

My tomatoes are starting to ripen up now, and I've harvested my first batch of chillies and a couple of sweet peppers - I bought a couple of bags of tesco red chillies and tesco scotch bonnets to top up, and hope to make a fermented hot sauce over the next month or two.

Courgettes plant has begun producing fruits - it's a globe courgette plant, which is entertaining. I've had a lot of mulberries and blackcurrants as well.

Growing food rules  

chillidoggy

Tomatoes already? Mine are still in the green and growing stage. You must have had a lot of decent weather.

ThePrettyDamned

chillidoggy said:

Tomatoes already? Mine are still in the green and growing stage. You must have had a lot of decent weather.

They are early croppers and I got them sown in late Feb. Only kept one plant as the allotments were not sorted in time so it's on the balcony in a pot. Had a few frost rescues (bringing it indoors!) but it's doing very well.

The weather here has been quite poor for warm loving plants to be honest, but the rain has reduced the work I put in.

The tomatoes I grew last year were a later fruiting variety which had a huge crop in September/October. 

LastMantra

Alway read the label/do some research What looks like a nice little plant in the garden centre can turn into a massive monster, or spread seeds everywhere/generally take over in a few weeks!

chillidoggy

Seems I spoke too soon, just spotted the appearance of the first husks!

https://i.imgur.com/yLrjIOA.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3oFdaff.jpg

ThePrettyDamned

chillidoggy said:

Seems I spoke too soon, just spotted the appearance of the first husks!

https://i.imgur.com/yLrjIOA.jpg[/img]

https://i.imgur.com/3oFdaff.jpg

Looks like a very healthy plant! Congrats!

One of the nice things about growing tomatillos is they are usually imported - you're saving yourself a lot of money and a significant carbon footprint because it's much easier to transport seed.

Next up you'll want a propagator I love mine - it's small, but easily gets peppers, tomatoes, squash etc off nice and early. I sow peppers in December (!) to get good strong plants indoors, and I've already had one harvest from them this year with another huge one to come.

The other great thing is growing salad leaves - leaves like romaine, lolla rossa and even baby gems are so, so tasty when they're picked the morning you eat them. If you put them in a fridge for a day you'll be surprised at how much more "dull" they taste.