Tomatillos not fruiting

[Primrose]

Haven't been around for a while on here but hope I can now link in more regularly & catch up with what you've all been doing.

Possibly Nature's Babe can answer this one for me? I have some outdoor tomatillos which are flowering well but none of the fruits are setting. Flowers are just dropping off. I've even tried pollinating some of them by hand but nothing's happening. Anything else I can try?

[Nature's Babe]

I never do anything to mine Primrose, it's early, you won't see the fruit at first because a calyx forms first then a tomatillo forms inside the caylix
like this

http://media.photobucket.com/image/toma ... 73.jpg?o=9

the husk changes from green to papery and dry, they are filling and sometimes splitting the husk by then. Welcome back.

[oldherbaceous]

I wonder if this warm spell might help.

Nice to see you back Primrose.

[Kleftiwallah]

As the lantern swells the fruit inside splits the 'calyx' , looks green then slowly turns purple. Cheers, Tony.

[Nature's Babe]

Hope all is well with you and yours and you are just busy Primrose, have you seen any calyx yet ?

[Primrose]

No calyx yet. Everything on the fruit stem seems to have disappeared without trace.

[Geoff]

Very strange. I assume from your first post you have several plants. They need to cross pollinate and I have only heard of this happening with single plants. Did you cross pollinate when you intervened?

[Nature's Babe]

I couldn't figure out why no pollination as Primrose had more than one plant. That is a possibility Geoff, when nature pollinates they usually go from plant to plant.

[Primrose]

Yes, I have several plants & have seen various insects on them, so don't think pollination is an issue. Perhaps a calyx is just slow to form and I may yet get some appearing.

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Primrose. They tend to form the calyx lower down on the stem first and be flowering further up the stem at the same time.

[Primrose]

Well, my tomatillos this year seem to have been late developers & I now have quite a few fruit forming on my plants. But several of them have had stems with fruit broken off by recent winds. I've got them in a jam jar of water with a little tomorite in it hoping the fruit may grow a little bigger & can be saved. I have a couple of questions now:

1. How will I know when they're of a size to be ripe? (my small experimental growing last year didn't give me enough to try out).
2. Do the husks turn brown or do I pick them when the husks are still green?
3. Can small unripe ones be cooked with ripe ones, or are they like tomatoes and have to be kept until 'ripe' before they can be cooked into some kind of salsa?

[Nature's Babe]

They are ripe when the husks change from green to papery Primrose, they seem to split their papery husk then.

[Primrose]

Just to tell Natures Babe that we recently made a small batch of salsa with our first harvested tomatillos and we enjoyed it. . So 'thank you' for the seeds you kindly sent me a couple of years ago which have at last produced a result! We still have a few to harvest but some of the fruits are very small and I'm wondering how late we dare leave them now in the hope of them growing bigger, bearing in mind the nights are getting chilly.