Forty days in and the Cos Verdi tomatillo at GardenBuddy’s Cairns plot has stopped looking like a seedling. By this stage you’d expect a metre or more of sprawling, slightly floppy growth, well past true leaves and into flower. Mine’s got open yellow star flowers along most branches now, and a few papery husks starting to swell behind the spent blooms. Not every flower sets. Tomatillos need a second plant nearby for decent pollination, and even with two in the bed I’m seeing some drop, which is normal and not something I’m going to pretend isn’t happening.
The plants have gone leggy in the tropical humidity, so I’ve staked the main stems this week rather than letting them lean into the mulch. That’s the one job worth doing right now: get support in before the fruit load hangs everything sideways, because a collapsed tomatillo bush tangles fast and picking gets miserable.
Pest watch
Queensland fruit fly is the one I’m watching hardest. Once those husks start filling out, they’re a magnet, and a sting early means a maggoty surprise at harvest with no visible warning from outside. I’m checking the undersides of husks every couple of days rather than waiting for obvious damage. If you want that check done for you instead of eyeballing it yourself, the personalised pest alerts on a Starter membership filter warnings down to the actual plants in your own journal, not a generic state-wide bulletin.
The real risk in Cairns right now is the dry season, not the heat. Night temperatures are dipping enough that irregular watering is doing more damage than any pest, and tomatillo sulks with dry roots by dropping flowers before it drops fruit. I’m on a proper soak twice a week rather than a daily sprinkle.
Twelve to fourteen days out from a first pick if this pace holds, though tomatillo has a habit of making you wait for the husk to actually split before it tells you it’s ready.
