Tomatillo woes!

[Ish]

I have five beautiful tomatillo plants in my balcony garden, all separately potted but near each other. I grew them from seed and they're bigger than I expected. One plant is much more enthusiastic compared to his siblings, and I just had a pretty little flower fall off after three-four days this morning. The other plants have baby buds peeking out, so I am still hopeful.

My question: here is a pic of my plants, sorry about the light, it's a cloudy morning here in champaign. Are my plants too tall for the leaves they have? On googling tomatillo plants I see these big bushy wild looking plants, and mine are anything but! I've grown seriously attached to these though, and am wondering if I did something wrong caring for them?

Thanks for any remarks

[erins327]

How lucky for you that it is the time of year that you can grow these guys. I had my fun here in April/May and with the heat have died. Til next Spring!


However, in my experience, it looks like they are not getting enough sun and are 'leggy'. How much sun do they get everyday?

Your pots are also way too small now. They look like they need to be upgraded to larger pots so they can spread their roots. I treated my tomatillos exactly how I treated my tomatoes, and had great success last spring!

[Ish]

They're always out on the balcony, and in champaign we've been having sunny days that average at about mid 70s to 80s for a while now. In short, lots of sun.

I will upgrade the pots. Thank you

[rainbowgardener]

Sorry, but a balcony just isn't lots of sun. It may or may not be adequate, depending on conditions and what direction the balcony faces. But the sun is always only coming from one direction, so half the plant is in shade and it can't be a full day of sun, because the house is behind it. If the balcony has a roof, it is even worse; I can't tell from the picture if yours does or not. Your plants do look leggy and like they aren't getting enough sun.

[Ish]

Aw man. I knew there was something different about my plants and the pictures I'd seen. I don't have any other option at the moment, honestly. So will have to just cross my fingers and hope for what best I can get from these guys!

I am definitely interested in continuing to garden this Fall and the coming years, and will presumably stay in this apartment for a while yet. Can you tell me if there are some plants I just shouldn't have on a balcony and subject them to this stress? If tomatillos are a no, I am assuming so are tomatoes. For fall, I was thinking mint (already have a few pots of mint, growing nicely), swiss chard, spinach and Indian chilli.

[rainbowgardener]

Mint, chard, and spinach should do well on your balcony. Peppers would generally not, though I don't know anything specifically about Indian chili.

[applestar]

To be able to answer what you can grow, we need full description of the balcony -- which direction it faces, any trees, buildings blocking the sun? Also it would be a good idea to really pay attention to when and where the sun starts to shine there and when and where the sun leaves the balcony.

Sometimes, you can get better sun exposure slightly higher -- so put them on a stand... Etc.

Also, the days are getting shorter now and every day, the sun rises a little less to the north of East and sets a little less to the north of West, and the sun's arc will get lower. This is basically in reverse of what happened in spring approaching summer solstice. So make note of the available sun and how it diminishes.

[Ish]

There is so much to learn!!!! I didn't start off knowing much, but the more I read, the less I realize I know

Ok. Balcony: south east. It's got a roof, unfortunately (always was glad about that until now, as I'd relax here with a book everyday...) and there is a tree in front of us that gives some shade (again, I was happy about this before. Innocent days!) but it doesn't block the entire balcony thankfully! Here's an idea of how much sun we get on a cloudy morning, about 830 am. It moves across my line of plans through the day. I already feel you guys are going to shake your heads and go "tch tch" (

Here's what I have on here so far: mint, Swiss chard, couple money plants, said tomatillo plants, three tomato plants that I bought from a nursery that were my first plants here, about four chilli plants from seed, my mystery cilantro, a jade plant, a random cactus, and a, trying to grow delphinium from seed but its a stubborn slow growing seedling!

Here's what I wanted to do for next year: tomatillos eggplant okra along with what I already have. Is this delusional? Oh and spinach and a rose plant too. thanks for reading this far into the post. I love it that you guys are actually interested in a total novices problems and actually write back.

[Cola82]

All of my plants are on a covered patio that faces East and get about 6-7 hours of sunlight every day and everything is okay. But what I do is spend a lot of time rotating pots. I have big half barrels with tomatoes and peppers on casters, and my squash are on caddies, which makes rotating them easier. I also try to keep everything spaced out because there isn't a lot of circulation in that space.

I've seen some folks here who live further north put white plastic sheets behind their tomatoes to increase the light bouncing back onto them, too. You might even want to consider some plant stands, and rail planters, so the rail doesn't impede their light so much.

It's never going to be ideal, but you can do a few things.

ETA: also, some people have some luck with topsy turvy planters. I'm going to experiment with them next year.

[rainbowgardener]

I think it is great, if all you have is a balcony, you garden your balcony. But if you are realistic about what you can grow, you will be less disappointed. I don't think full sun fruiting plants like eggplant okra tomatoes are very realistic. Think about things that grow leaves like spinach and chard, think about cooler weather stuff like broccoli. The mint will be great. Hanging baskets that hang from your roof line or planters that hook over the balcony and hang on the outside of it would help.