Tomatillos

I've never grown tomatillos before.  A few years ago, I fell in love with a tomatillo salsa recipe that I got from the Foodnetwork's Tyler Florence.  I've made it several times since then, and I always look forward to finding tomatillos to make it.  This year I decided to grow my own, and they are doing nicely in a pot on my deck.  However, I don't know for sure how to tell when they are ripe.  Does anyone know?  I did taste one yesterday, and it tasted like a tomatillo (which of course got me dreaming of salsa!). 

Are you wondering why I would taste one without knowing for sure if it was ripe or not?  Well, my darling daughter has been attacking my potted plants with the zeal of a tomato worm.  Seriously.  This is how the tomatillo plants are guarded at the moment: 

Every chance she gets, our little baby chickie pulls a piece off of the plants: leaves, tomatillos, stems, she doesn't care.  Since she pulled off a little tomatillo yesterday, I decided to eat it.  And it was so good.  But they are very small, more like the size of cherry tomatoes, so I'm not sure how to tell if they will grow more or not.

Of course, it may not matter if Lydia keeps this up!