Tomatillo Question

[recruiterg]

How do you save seed from Tomatillo?

Thanks,

Pat

[Gobig_or_Gohome_toms]

No expert but I would think it would be similar to how I saved ground cherry seeds since both do not have seed locules (sp). I just mashed them on a paper plate and then move the seeds to another paper plate and then maybe one more so I was left with mainly the seeds and no fruit.

Craig

[franzb69]

uhm.... aren't ground cherries the same as tomatillos? =D

[Wi-sunflower]

Not really. Similar tho.

Tomatillos can get fairly big and are picked often unripe so they have more of a "lemon" flavor for Salsa Verde. Even left to ripen they are never really sweet but do lose much of the lemon flavor and have a bit of a "plum" taste, at least for me.

Ground Cherries are much smaller and usually are not "picked" but you wait til they drop off the plant. They can be very sweet and have a cherry-pineapple flavor to me.

The leaf and growth habit is somewhat dif too. Ground cherries are lower and less sprawly. Tomatillos can overrun an area.

I process them the same way I do my tomato seeds, tho I don't do tomatoes the way most do. I just smash up a lot in a 5 gal bucket with some water. I use a paint mixer on a drill to seperate the seeds from the pulp. The good seeds will sink and the junk floats. After several careful pour offs of the water/junk i collect the seeds with a fine mesh strainer and put on a screen plate. i need a finer mesh for the tomatillo and ground cherry seeds as they are smaller than tomato seeds and will go thru the strainer I use for the tomatoes. Dry as for tomato seeds.

Carol

[mdvpc]

Pulverize the fruits in a blender or food processor with enough water to cover them. (This will not harm the small, slippery seeds.) Pour the mixture into a bowl, add some more water and stir well. The good seeds will settle to the bottom, and the immature seeds and debris will float and can be poured off the top. Repeat as necessary. Collect the good seeds by pouring the clean water through a strainer and then dry them on a ceramic or glass plate.

[ContainerTed]

I did my first tomatillo seed saving last year and found out they are a bit more difficult than tomatoes.

Like Carol indicates, you have to smash the pulp without damaging the seeds. For the small amount of seed I saved, I put the sliced up meat of the fruit into a large bowl of water and then used my fingers to do a lot of squeezing. The seeds fell to the bottom and so did a lot of the pulp. Then, like Carol, I carefully poured the junk off and then spread the seeds on a paper plate to dry.

Note that there is no "Gel" around the seeds to speak of. Squeezing the meat of the fruit between my fingers released the seeds. For the "non-commercial" saver, two or three fruit will produce more than adequate numbers of the seed.

I have wondered if a Back-to-Basics food mill with a berry screen would leave the tomatillo seeds unharmed. I know that the Tomato/Apple screen will leave the tomato seeds undamaged.

Ted

[dice]

Someone posted a pretty good page on tomatillos awhile back
that said you need at least two tomatillo plants, because they
are not self-fertile. One needs pollen from a different plant
than where the fruit are forming, similar to some kinds of trees.

That is not true of ground cherries. If you only have one ground
cherry plant, it will still produce ripe fruit. (Aunt Molly's is
delicious, by the way.) Cutworms seem to be especially fond
of the stems in spring, so they might need protection with a
few inches of slit plastic drinking straw or similar until the
stem gets too thick for a cutworm to encircle.