Well, I may not be of any help here, because I've been raising tomatillos for years and never knew that they had gender. Every one I've ever put into the ground has borne fruit--usually a lot of fruit. I won't be starting my seeds for at least a month though at the same time I start tomatoes. Where did you get the information about tomatillo plants having gender?

I usually plant more seeds than I need of everything and give some away after I plant what I want, but not because I am afraid of getting males. I just do everything that way. Not every seed that germinates sends up a strong seedling and I like to plant the best, give away some and compost the rest.

I would like to tell my crazy tomatillo story. First of all I know nothing about tomatillos, I had only seen them a few times in the Grocery store. Last year my neighbor offered me some plants. I told him I would take only one because I had no place to put it. I planted it at the end of my tomato row and it produced like crazy. I knew I was going to have surgery the 4th of Sept. so I started clearing out the garden early. I had my granddaughter remove all the tomatoes in the south garden (where the tomatillo was). After the tomatoes were removed the tomatillo set fruit very poorly. While the tomatoes were next to the tomatillo it nearly buried us in fruit.

This has been my only dealing with tomatillos, but if ever grow them again I will plant more than one plant.

Larry

There could be something to that, Larry. I have planted either 4 or 6 at a time when I planted. Four are enough.

Wow Larry, so it sounds like tomatoes can pollinate a tomatillo? Interesting..
Mulberry, after reading over and over one tomatillo plant will not self-pollinate and two or more is required for producing fruit, I somehow translated that into male vs female plants. Although, I vaguely remember reading that but... To answer your question "where did you get your information?" Well, embarrassingly I must've made it up! Lol Thanks for clearing that up for me! I can rest easy now and just pick the healthiest four out of the seedlings I grow. Thank you!

Amunk01,

If it helps any, tomatillo plant blossoms each have both male and female parts just like tomato blossoms do. It is just that, in general, tomatillo flowers suffer from self-incompatability and cannot pollinate/fertilize themselves. However, there's always a tomatillo plant here and there that doesn't suffer from self-incompatability, so occasionally a person with only one plant still gets a good harvest. There also are wild plants related to tomatillos that grow (I see them in our rural area a lot) here and they may be pollinating single tomatillo plants growing close to them.

I have grown single tomatillo plants some years and had them produce just fine, but we do have native plants related to them growing wild on our property and on property adjacent to ours. Those plants and bees/other pollinators may have been pollinating and fertilizing my single plant.

One year it was rainy and cold all spring and I was worried the tomatillo plants wouldn't produce well, so I planted 6 tomatillo plants. That was 5 plants too many. They took over that whole section of the garden, and since it was the tomato section and I like tomatoes a lot more than I like tomatillos, I just kept hacking back those tomatillo plants and they kept growing and trying to take over the entire world.

Larry, I've never seen it written anywhere that tomato pollen will fertilize tomatoes so I think it might be just a coincidence that your tomatillo plant stopped setting fruit after your tomato plants were removed. I won't say it isn't possible, but rather that I've never heard anecdotal reports of it happening and never have seen it mentioned in the research on tomatillos.

Dawn

Dawn, I have no idea what happened.

I read on a Bonnie website that a tomatillo plant would produce a pound of fruit in a season, the plant I had produced much more than that.

Larry

I'm starting to think four plants will be too many for the 4'x4' bed I was considering planting them in. I intended to cage them but will that be enough room? Dawn, the description of yours taking over makes me think I should maybe only plant two or three max!

They can get to be really big sprawling plants. I planted four plants in a 4x6 foot space and put woven wire cages around them and still clipped a lot of stems that "escaped." I think two plants would fill up a 4x4 ft space. The problem I had with four was that it became very hard to reach the fruit in the center of the bed. With only two that won't be such a problem.

We don't like them so I never plant them (intentionally), but once I got them with some other produce and I thought the chickens might eat them. Well I guess they did and then they got planted all over my garden. I tried to pull them all, but some still managed to grow and produce. I was pulling plants with fruit all over them, so I think they will take over if you let them.

I don't know if the one I grew will reproduce. The plant did not do well in late summer and fall, but from the look of the pile of fruit I have left under the plant I may have the same problem as Carol.

Larry

Oh my Larry! That's a lot of fruit!
I think I will only grow two, thanks for all the input everyone!

Larry, they will volunteer for at least a couple of years. I LOVE tomatillos, and because of that... it seems they die out on me and I have to keep planting them. I have a couple of rotten fruit in my milking shed and plan to pitch them out into the garden in February. That'll probably do it ;)

We have a native version which generally has extremely tiny fruit, small plants and insipid flavor. Last summer I found one native, however, which had really nice fruit flavor.

I've had them fail to fruit when conditions are too hot and dry.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Larry, You don't really have to know what happened. Just be glad it happened and you got tomatillos. We have their native relatives in our fields and fencelines here, so you may have a similar situation there without even knowing it. The first time I planted them, when we lived in Fort Worth, I planted one purchased transplant and stuck it in an out of the way corner near the shed. That plant tried to devour the shed. Since the backyard shed wasn't exactly a focal part of the garden, I didn't care. I would have been happy if it completely buried the shed. Then, the first time I grew them from seed in a location with more space, I planted 6 in my brother's garden for him. I did plant them pretty far away from everything except the blackberries. The tomatillos and blackberries battled each other for space that whole summer.

Amunk01, Four would be a lot. I'd probably plant two if I were in your shoes. After I realized how much space tomatillos need, I started planting them 6' apart from one another. I cannot picture 4 of them in a 4' x 4' bed. As Dorothy notes, 4 of them would be so dense that you couldn't see to harvest. On the other hand, if there is something unsightly in your yard that you want to hide, plant them around it and no one ever will see it while the tomatillo plants are there.

George, I've had them fail to fruit in hot weather, but they made up for it when fall weather returned. I assume they are affected by heat in the same way most tomatoes are, but that's only an assumption. I don't know for sure that it is true. Ground cherries did the same thing in my garden last summer---they stopped fruiting from mid-July through late August, but rebounded with a vengeance in September.

Dawn

I experienced the same thing described above. I've only planted tomatillos twice in the last 10 years because they are true beasts that set fruit by the truckload and this from a single plant. "Less is more" definitely fits in this case. :-)

Good luck!

Larry, Multiply your "ground harvest" times 4 and you'll know what I had.

I ask my daughter and granddaughters yesterday if there were any vegetables they would like for me to grow this year, would you believe that tomatillos were on the list? I don't know what to do, the one plant produced more than we could use and give away and I don't know how to plant 1/2 of a plant. Sweet potatoes and spaghetti squash were also on the list.

This was my year of cutting back, we will see how that works.

Larry