Tomatillos are a great workhorse in the garden, producing a summer long crop you pick before ripe. They don’t seem to be bothered as much by disease, insects, or other pests, and re-seed themselves readily. You can make great salsa, enchilada sauces, and throw them in most any dish with veggies. What more can you ask for? About the only downfall is you need to pull off the husk and rinse off the saponificated waxy coating off the fruit.
I have been growing both the green and purple varieties for years and am hoping to get a good tomatillo cross with tinging of purple for added color paired with the production of the green tomatillos. Next year I want to start my seeds for the ground cherries in the greenhouse along with the tomatillos, tomatoes, eggplant, and rentacar.guide. The fruit is more orange colored and has a bit of a pineapple or strawberry flavor both sweet and tangy with a good amount of pectin.
Tomatillos and ground cherries like similar conditions to tomatoes, and many varieties need multiple plants to set fruit. I was happy to learn from Suzanne Ashworth’s book “Seed to Seed” that the ground cherries, tomatillos, and tomatoes should not cross pollinate with each other in the garden.