This is the comment that got me to buy ‘em. I’m gonna grow them this year to see if they’re worth the hype. I also got Dwarf Tamarillo, Litchi Tomato, Wonderberry and Otricoli Berry; lots of Nightshade Berries (¿Nightberries?¿Shadeberries?). I’ve grown Cape Gooseberry before, but was always disappointed with under-sized berries. I’m hoping the malinalco tomatillo will be an acceptable substitute. Anyone growing the Jaltomata s? I tried my hand with two species, but couldn’t get them to sprout. Despite the lack of husks, the images I’ve seen remind me of Physalis.
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I grew litchi tomatoes for the first time this year. I like them, but I can see why people would find them boring. They are small, not very sweet, not very tart, not very flavorful. But they are plenty big if your consider them a berry target then a fruit. They are a little sweet, mildly berry like in flavor, and have a soft-then-crunchy taste. I find that they’re actually a lot like the out of season blueberries you get from the store.
The plant itself is really fun. It is easy to grow, mostly self supporting, gets huge, has a bounty of really pretty flowers, and looks like a cross between a potato, a tomato, and the devil himself. Just that would be reason enough to grow it. The fact that it also produces a constant supply of decent blueberry like fruits, which the birds also seen to enjoy, is a nice bonus. Very few pest issues, just some potato bugs that were easy enough to control.
Those tomatillos are the opposite of litchi tomatoes. They’re bigger than regular tomatillos, and have a very different texture and flavor. They’re partially hollow, almost like a pepper actually, but very tender. They don’t have the acidity either, even a tomato is more acidic. But they are pretty sweet. And the flavor is very strong. I think it’s overall closest to physalis, but that’s only sort of similar. Initially, I didn’t enjoy them out of hand, only roasted and added to other stuff as a flavoring. As I’ve had more of them, I’m beginning to like the raw fruit itself more and more.
They are very vigorous and productive, at least for me. And earlier than pretty much any other solanum I grow.
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Those look fantastic. Where did you get the seeds? I’d love to grow those.
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Was just walking through the Beacon Food Forest here in Seattle and spotted this in one of the plots, with many dropped fruit. What species is it? The flowers are yellow, you can kind of see them in the first photo:
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thats philadelphica aka tomatillo.
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yeah, theyre good. I plan to grow them again. best tomatillos ive grown
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Ah! I have usually seen them with larger husks in grocery stores, but haven’t ever grown them myself. Good to know, thanks.
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Fantastic. Thanks
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I’ve tried growing Cape Gooseberry a couple of times from different sources, but they always bore quite small fruit (always smaller than the online photos, the package photos, or the fresh ones sold in Walmart). I’ve often wondered if it could be bred to have much bigger fruit… which led me to wonder if Tomatillo could be bred to develop a dessert/fruity flavor profile, comparable in quality to Cape Gooseberry.
That’s actually why I’m interested in the Malinalco Tomatillos… the descriptions always gave an impression of dessert-type fruit instead of vegetable-type.
As I was browsing the web for these Tomatillos, I stumbled across a variety that was heavily implied to be a dessert Tomatillo. I’m debating whether I should get them… They’re not available stateside, and I’ve had international packages seized in recent years, so I don’t know if it would be worth the trouble. That said, I think the cash expenditure is relatively small.
They call it Hungarian Giant Vanilla Tomatillo. The description claims:
It is a large, high-yielding, honey-sweet tomatillo variety. Its fruits ripen from green to ivory white. These delicious fruits can be harvested from July until the first frosts.
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Go for it, and cross the small, tasty physalis with the big tomatillos while you’re at it !!! 
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i think thats a tricky cross. there are ploidy barriers that would require some strategic maneuvering, some years, and a good amount of luck.
i grew out some of the Colombian “goldenberries” that you see periodically in the grocery store here in the states. They come packaged in those cube shaped plastic totes. Ive been enjoying the flavor of the homegrown ones much more than the store bought ones, and the size has been reasonably impressive.
The biggest thing about growing them here is that they really don’t do all that much the first year. I dig them and winter them in pots, and the second year, they pretty much explode woth growth.
Now if we could just figure out this worm/grub/whatever the heck it is. I probably have it in 1/3 of these high tunnel goldenberries, which is less than many years, but still a pain
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Please forgive me if this has already been answered, but has there been any observation of the subsequent lifecycle of the insect after it has done it’s damage to the fruit? I am wondering if known attacked fruit(s) have been placed in some sort of container and monitored to see what might emerge as the next stage of the insect’s life in order to successfully identify it.
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ive spent lots of time looking and observing but i still have only the vaguest notion. i did see several of these beetles on infested fruits, but given the size of the grub / caterpillar / worm vs the beetle, it seems like itd be unrelated. Ill see what the larvae do when they pop out of these fruit. id been operating under the assumption that the burrow down in the soil after wiggling their way out.
today, i thought i found a fruit that was newly worm eaten, as though itd crawled its way from the fruit it developed in over to a healthy fruit. thats the first time i’ve observed that, and i wasnt 100% convinced. the fruit in question had some splitting, so it may have concealed otger signs of entry or ovipositong, but the fruit showed no signs of rot and was barely eaten but had a worm in it.
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interesting. im unfamiliar, but would like to know more
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i grew cape gooseberries last year. i started them in april indoors. planted out in mid june. by late july they were starting to ripen fruit. almost as big as the ones in the store and taste was the same. didnt grow any this year but i still have volunteers from them coming up where they were. got about 2 gal. per plant until the frost killed them. my little niece was disappointed i didn’t grow any this year. she loves them.
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Since we’re due for a week of rain, I thought I’d pick fruit from my 2 peruviana plants before the fruit decides to split. Lucie’s Goldenberry (on left) has been producing ripe fruits for about a week while Shoenbrun Goldenberry (on right) is still green around the edges.
Shoenbrun is a bit larger but since it hasn’t ripened in this warm summer, it’s a no-go for my PNW maritime climate. The taste of the Schoebrun is sweet but vegetative- an unpleasant combination - but could change if it had another few weeks to ripen. It probably would do fine in many warmer zones. Both Lucie’s Goldenberry and Schoenbrun Goldenberry hang on the plant in their paper husks, unlike Aunt Molly which drops to the ground. Both plants are about 5’ tall and 3’ wide.
Wow… the taste of Lucie’s Goldenberry is terriffic! …like the zing of an orange creamsicle … nothing like the tart goldenberries that are sold in the markets. Definitely would make great jam.
Because of the fruit size and it’s ability to hang on the plant, it’s a better choice here than the earlier-maturing, much smaller Aunt Molly. I’ll be growing Lucie’s Goldenberry next year!
If the fruit make it through the rain without rotting, I should have lots of seeds. If you’d like some Lucie’s Goldenberry, send me a stamped self-addressed envelope. PM for my address.
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Is this a Physalis?
It volunteered in one of my garden beds, but since I often reuse potting soil, it could have been a P. peruviana that didn’t initially germinate from one of the batches I started. I ended up killing them all because I accidentally left them outside for a frost in late winter, so I’m not sure what the plants look like. All I can say is this doesn’t look anything like the P. pruinosa that I mostly have grown. I guess it could even be some other similar looking Solanaceae species that isn’t a Physalis at all.
I’m debating potting it up to see if it’ll overwinter ok in the greenhouse, since there’s no chance it’ll produce any fruit at this point with flowers not even open yet.
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Yeah Winn, that is definitely a peruviana. Don’t hesitate to dig and pot it as theyll take that treatment in stride and will happily live for several years when protected from the worst of winter. In your climate, you may even find that it tends to grow as a dieback perennial, resprouting from the crown below soil line or perhaps from rhizomes elsewhere. One word of caution in that regard: it can be a bit of a vigorous monster. The prevailing advise seems to be to grow them in low fertility soil to check vegetative growth, which doesnt preclude getting a good yield. Ive done that for years to good effect, and decided to throw caution to the wind and plant them directly in a fertile drip irrigated bed in the high tunnel and all I can say is wow! What started out as three meager year old seedlings has turned into a full on jungle about 10 ft x 8 ft x 7 ft tall since setting them out in late May or so! Its pretty hard to even get in there to harvest. Luckily the fruits keep well in the calyxes, so I figure Ill wind up harvesting most of them when I go to cut them back in a month or so.
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FWIW, My original source of peruviana was a friend who has it growing unprotected outdoors in Berkeley, CA. As you suggest, the advantages of growing a second year (or longer) include higher and earlier yields. Grown from seed in my climate, it barely even ripens a fruit most seasons. Crudely digging a crown and wintering it in a cold basement makes peruviana into a viable and quite productive crop for my climate.
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Great idea! I’ll try overwintering my Lucie’s Golden. After digging, did you reduce the top to a few inches?
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