Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Tomatillo issues

The tomatillos have been looking very sad all summer. In fact, we have had barely a pound of fruit off it. I was ready to give in. I don't know what is wrong with them, but I doubted I would be able to fix it this year. I just wanted to know since I did promise Pooka we would try it again next year. 
Sad looking tomatillos
I picked some fruit and some leaves before Pooka and I went to the nursery on Saturday. We went inside and asked them if they knew what was wrong with the plant. They thought it needed fertilized at first, and so did I, so I told them we had fertilized them twice.
See the sad state of the leaves
 They said they didn't see any real insect damage, so they don't think that was it, which left the tomatillos with a fungus. The nice man at the nursery showed me a fungicide that WOULD be safe to use on food. He even said it would be safe to pick after 24 hours. I asked him if it was worth even trying seeing as the season was ending and he told me if I tried this, I should be able to get one really good harvest for Pooka. He then talked to Pooka a bit about what she wanted to make with the tomatillos.
Some of the leaves even have a yellow tint to them
As much as I generally hate using chemicals on the garden, this was a have to do/it can't hurt too much I guess. We are going to try it and then see what happens. Worst case is it doesn't help and we give up and wait for next year. Best case, Pooka gets more then one jar of Salsa verde. 

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