Tomatillos might not be a good crop for us here. I’ve tried a couple of plantings, and each time they grew well, then we had tomatillo failure as they were completely stripped by beetles and their grubs.
It would be safe to say that tomatillos are not a common crop in Australia. You would rarely if at all see them in the greengrocer in Sydney, and growing up in a gardening family in Perth I hadn’t heard of them, although their relative the cape gooseberry is common. So I was keen to give them a try here, as they seem ideal for our warm climate. The idea of tangy salsas to go with some refried beans was tempting too.
Growing tomatillos
I sowed the first lot in a seed tray in September, and planted out in October. The seedlings did well, grew to knee-height, then started flowering. So far so good. I got a few fruit off them, although they do take a long, long time to mature and fill their paper lanterns, in which time quite a few were lost to caterpillars or just fell off the plants. Then they were hit and stripped by the slug-like larvae of what I gather is a Lema beetle.
Here are a few of the beetles in action. They have a distinctive brown, black and white striping. The larvae are nasty – they carry their excrement on their backs, and I gather that since the tomatillo leaves are poisonous, like most of the potato family, the poison is a deterrent to predators. Certainly I got sore fingers from stripping them off the plants, and would suggest rubber gloves for the job.
This is how they leave a plant – totally stripped.
Although the odd giant fruit does escape – but what can you do with one?
The garden here has been remarkably free of major pests, maybe due to isolation, maybe due to abundant wildlife, but these Lema beetles have a reservoir here. Tomatillos are members of the Physalis genus, which have distinctive papery lantern fruits with a berry inside. Tomatillos are Physalis philadelphica, and Cape Gooseberries are P. peruviana. We have two other, wild Physalis species that grow here through late Winter into Summer. At first I was excited because I though one was a Cape Gooseberry, as it has a similar hairy leaf, and I watched them grow to a good size, but not only do both weeds have insipid fruit, they host the Lema beetle, and similar to the tomatillos get completely stripped in the warm weather.
A really annoying thing is that, searching for tomatillo pests, I found most sites said they are free from trouble. So congratulations to all you harvesters of tomatillo bounty, long may your plants flourish, but here they seem to be a no-go through Summer.
I will give them another go, though. As they seem to grow in similar conditions to tomatoes, and we here are sowing tomatoes now for the Winter crop, I will see whether I can get tomatillos to grow through winter too, maybe for a spring crop before the beetles get active.*
* In fact I did get a great crop through Winter and Spring. The key here is growing them when the beetles are not around.
Why bother? Well although they are slow and take a bit of space, my one fortnight of tomatillo salsa (roast on the barbecue then blended) was memorable, and it would be nice to experiment a little more with them.
If you’ve got any tips for Lema beetle control or tomatillo culture you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you.