Content
- Grow lychee tomatoes - a real exotic in the home garden
- What is the Litchitomate and what does it look like?
- How to plant the Litchitomate
- The ideal location for lychee tomatoes
- The right care
- Harvest litchi tomatoes
- Tips & Tricks
Grow lychee tomatoes - a real exotic in the home garden
The lychee tomato is still a rarity in our latitudes. Originally from Central America, the plant grows well in our latitudes and bears plenty of fruit.
What is the Litchitomate and what does it look like?
Like tomatoes and potatoes, the lychee tomato is one of the nightshades. The plant has, very unusual for tomatoes, hard spines on the stems, leaves and fruit capsules. The red or yellow, small cocktail-like fruits are surrounded by a spiky pericarp and thus remind a little of chestnuts. The shrub will grow up to two meters, depending on soil quality and care. Also, the taste of the fruit does not match that of an ordinary tomato: the fruits are sweet and taste more like cherries. For this reason, the ripe lychee tomatoes can not only be eaten fresh from the bush, but also boil down to jam or fruit juice.
How to plant the Litchitomate
You can use the Litchitomate similar to normal tomatoes, d. H. From the end of March / beginning of April they pull the young plants from the seeds. This succeeds easily in commercial cultivation soil on the windowsill or in the greenhouse. The young plants can be put into the open air after the ice saints (ie mid to late May). Lychee tomatoes need a loose, nutrient-rich soil. Thoroughly soil the soil before planting and plant mature compost or manure into this soil. Put the plantlets in the ground and press them firmly. Now you can fix the lychee tomato on a stick, so that the fast-growing shrub does not break over - as with conventional tomatoes too.
The ideal location for lychee tomatoes
The right care
Also in their care you can treat the Litchitomate similar to tomatoes, but it needs - unlike normal tomatoes - not to be spiked. Fertilize the lychee tomato about every two weeks with preferably organic fertilizer such as compost or horn shavings. Optionally, you can also use liquid tomato fertilizer. The plant should be watered regularly. However, only pour them close to the ground and never scald them. Even rain tolerates the Litchitomate only bad and should therefore be under a canopy.
Harvest litchi tomatoes
Litchi tomatoes are harvested from late August to early October. The ripe fruits have a diameter between two and three centimeters and can be easily detached from the fruit capsules. However, you can still harvest slightly unripe fruits, as the lychee tomato ripens.
Tips & Tricks
You can also keep the exotic plant in a sufficiently large bucket on the balcony or terrace. In this case, however, you should regularly water, fertilize and, above all, protect the lychee tomato from (heavy) rain. A covered shelter is therefore the optimal location on your balcony.