Plant · P-226

Tomatillo

Physalis philadelphica

Tomatillo produces a husk-wrapped fruit that becomes the base for salsa verde and other green sauces - picked once it fills or splits its papery covering, and usable raw or cooked anywhere a tomato would go, with unripe fruit keeping up to a year stored in the husk. Unlike its nightshade relatives in this group, it needs no midsummer break: it is genuinely more heat-tolerant than tomato and bears steadily through the hottest stretch of summer once it starts around 90 days after transplant. It also needs a second plant nearby, since it cannot pollinate itself, and it self-sows so readily that dropped fruit volunteers freely the next year, which is free replanting rather than a nuisance. Every part of the plant except the ripe fruit is mildly poisonous, including the papery husk, which has to come off before eating.