[music] Hello friends
In today's video we will see how to grow Tomatillos
Tomatillos are a zesty and tangy twist on tomatoes
And its mostly used in Asian and Mexican cooking
And here are some fun facts
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We will be planting our tomatillo plant in a whiskey barrel container
And that's one of my favorite mediums for growing any large plant including tomatillos
So this is a Bonnie plant that you can buy at any garden store
So we will be using our usual steps to remove the plant from the peat pot
By just pushing it out just like that
And we will be removing the soil around the roots
Remember its always an important step to free up those roots
To stimulate those roots so that
They can better adapt to the medium they are growing in
And the soil that we are using for our container is a potting mix
And if you've seen my earlier videos you will know that potting mixes are better than potting soils
And that's pretty much it as far as planting goes
Now tomatillo plants can get very huge
They can actually grow up to 6 feet or even taller
And the plant grows tall as well as wide
So we do need to support it with a cage
Now I'm using this tomato cage that you get at most garden stores
Remember to buy the one that has 4 prongs not 3 prongs
The 3 prongs is the cheaper version but its not as sturdy as the 4 prong version
That's how the cage looks like
And to further support this cage, we will be using two rebars
These are 6 foot rebars that you can get in the Building Materials section of any garden
store
And what we do is use these rebars to secure this cage
So you could use anything to secure it - you could tie the rebar to the cage using ties
or mason line
Or pretty much any sturdy medium that you can use to tie this rebar to the cage
Once that is done, you need to water it deeply
Remember, planting any kind of plant requires you to water it very deep the time it is planted
Do not wait for a long time before watering your plants
The plants are experiencing a lot of stress so this is really the time they need water
to just kind of settle down into the new environment
Remember its a big change for the plant - they're coming from a very small container into this
really big container with new soil
So they do need time to adjust to the new environment
So its been about 1 week since we planted our tomatillo plants
And as you can see it's growing pretty well
Its branched out into a lot more branches
And its even producing some flowers
Although most of these flowers would not be setting fruit because its just too early for
the tomatillo plant to start producing fruit
But as you can see the stems are pretty sturdy, the leaves are nice and green - they do not
have any kind of mineral deficiency
And all in all this plant looks really nice
So another 3 weeks later the plant is growing really well and vigorously
Its produced a lot more flowers now
The stems continue to grow well
The plant is becoming taller and bushier
Its quite a lot of growth in about a month
Another week later I just wanted to show you how many flowers this tomatillo plant is producing
Now here's the thing - tomatillo plants produce small fruits
But the number of fruits they produce is just alarming
They produce a lot of small sized fruits so what they lose in size, they make up for by
producing just a large number of tomatillos
There you can see one of the first appearances of a fruit
And what happens is that the tomatillo starts growing inside that shell and keeps growing
and growing
Till it actually rips the shell off and starts showing out as a fruit
So a lot of flowers are falling off which is OK but the tomatillos that have set fruit
looks something like this
And remember the fruits that are being set are still growing inside the shell of the
tomatillo
And we have like a lot of flowers - hundreds of thousands of flowers here
Small flowers yellow colored flowers - they attract a lot of bees
And the bees do most of the pollination
Well if they don't, you can do some pollination with your hands as well
Now the way you add fertilizer to Tomatillo plants is very similar to what you would do
for tomatoes
When the plants are small, you would need to add a high nitrogen fertilizer
Which makes sure the plants get to a healthy start
And then once the plant starts flowering, you need to add a low nitrogen, high phosphorous
fertilizer that will encourage blooms
So here are some example of fertilizers that you can add
During the initial stage as well as the later stages of flowering
Here you can see some fruits forming but we did see a lot of flowers
So how do you ensure all the flowers set fruit?
So let's see this in the next section of our video - Hand pollinating tomatillos
So in about 60 days after planting, your tomatillos should be formed and ready for harvest.
Some of them could be outside the protective covering, but some of them might be still
hiding inside them
So this is how it looks like - you juts take the tomatillo, peel off the protective covering
And some of these might be sticky so that's pretty normal
Now don't get surprised that they are sticky or there's something sticking on it
Its just the way tomatillos are
That's how it looks like
So just keep harvesting wherever you feel there's a fruit that's formed
And let's keep doing that
Let's at least get a few tomatillos out
I'm just trying to make sure that we get the developed ones and not the ones that are still
not formed
And as I mentioned earlier, the tomatillo plant produces small fruit but it makes up
for the size by sheer numbers
There are hundreds of small tomatillos on this plant
And as you can see here that's how they look like - not too big
Now this is the regular tomatillo that I am showing you
The usual tomatillo plant that's grown
Now if you go to stores, you'll find these really huge tomatillos and that is what comes
from a giant tomatillo
I do have giant tomatillos growing and I'll probably cover that in a separate video
But this tomatillo that you're seeing is the traditional or the more commonly used tomatillo
which has small fruits
But a lot of fruits!
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So as you can see there a lot of tomatillos to harvest
But in the interest of time and to show you the harvest in this video, I'm going to be
harvesting just a few
And then we'll show you what we should do with it next
That pretty much completes our harvest
Let's just get one or two more out
There we go, let's get that one
And this is a small sample of the harvest
And you can harvest like hundreds of these
So let's was these tomatillos that we harvested
And washing removes all the sticky coating that you might have been surprised about
So it removes all the sticky coating as well as any husk that remains
So drain out the water
That's a really big tomatillo
I have not seen any of the other tomatillos that are that big
So let me just cut this open and show you how it looks like
Almost looks like a tomato
Remember its a sour and tangy version of the tomato
So this is how it looks like
Hardly any seeds inside it
And it looks pretty good
And this one was one of the biggest tomatillos
The other are pretty small and standard sized
But remember this is still the standard sized tomatillo, not the giant one
So I hope you liked this video
And I would like to hear from you if you've tried growing tomatillos in your garden
They are a nice, sour and tangy version of tomatoes
So if you don't like sweet tomatoes and you like the sour or the tangy ones
You should definitely give tomatillo a shot
I'll see you again soon
Happy Gardening!