you can grow fresh delicious tomatillos right in your home garden in today's
episode we look at growing purple tomatillos now you can direct sow your
seeds in containers and since we're growing at least about three or four
plants I chose a 16 inch container that's quite big in size and then what
you do is just direct sow the seeds make sure that you're sowing your seeds
directly only after the last frost date in your area otherwise your seeds are
not gonna germinate and you are not gonna see the plants or the seedlings
coming up from your seeds now the reason we grow at least three to four tomato
plants close to each other is because tomatillo plants are self sterile which
means that they cannot pollinate themselves the same plant cannot
pollinate its own so that's why you need at least about three plants or four
plants when you're growing tomatillos you can also start your tomato seedlings
in seed starting kit slike these about six weeks before you plan to plant them
outside and they're a warm season crop it's a summer crop and you can see here
that about 46 days since sowing the plant has grown pretty tall
and they will continue to grow as long as you provide enough sunlight and
nutrients the nutrient requirement so the fertilizer requirements are just
like the tomato plant what are your tomato plants depending on
the temperatures in your area you can see a rough guide to watering your
plants here
so about 67 days since you planted your tomato plants you will see that they've
produced lush foliage and will also start producing flowers as you can see
here now that's why you need at least two or three plants so that the flowers
can get pollinated from the adjacent plants
and there are a lot of containers you can grow your tomato plants in and this
is one of them as you see here it's a pretty large container and you need to
watch out for insects this
lined potato beetle caused a lot of damage to
our tomatillo plant and you can hand pick this insect and then make sure that
your plant is free from these kind of pests but you do need to take care of
your tomatillo plant just like you would take care of your tomato or your
eggplants or any other summer crop
and your tomatillo plant might grow very tall which is pretty normal and it will
produce a lot of branches it will produce a lot of flowers and in about
120 days you will see the fruits start forming
and if you don't see the fruits forming if you just see the leaves you need to
plant more plants now the purple tomatillo is very unique when it ripens
it has this purple color inside the husk and some people even eat it raw because
it has this nutty flavor that is pretty amazing but we harvested these
tomatillos and prepared salsas and chutneys and they were pretty amazing
the tomatillo plant is so easy to grow it makes a great summer crop and once
you plant it and once it starts producing fruits it does produce a lot
of tomatoes so you can expect a lot of tomatoes from just one plant and you
will be pleasantly surprised at how good this plant is so there we have it folks
that was our episode on growing the purple tomatillo plant I'll provide a
link to the seeds in the video description below if you want to know
more about growing tomatillos and to see our delicious recipe do check out these
two videos on your screen right now and we'll see you again soon happy gardening