how come .... no one writes in.. and asks if they can eat these things??? they seem to want to stick everything else in their mouths... ken ps: i am surprised the french havent figured out how to make some tasty, smelly cheese out of it ... lol ...

It won't freeze in the 40's. But the cooler temps will slow down the growth of the butterfly and it will be slower to eclose. I keep my cats and chrysalises in as warm temps as possible - to speed up their development so they will eclose and get on their way sooner rather than later, because it's starting to get cool here too. The butterfly won't flutter around when it first ecloses - it simply needs to hang from something to expand and dry its wings. It will hang pretty quietly for a couple hours (at least) and only start fluttering when it's ready to fly. The chrysalis will start to turn transparent about 24 hours before the butterfly ecloses, and mine almost always eclose in the morning. If you can be around to watch it, it's great. But if you can't be around to monitor it, you could put it outside in a sunny sheltered spot then.

Its not a matter of pieces and parts, the problem is the plant can not use its own pollen. Those who say that they have had success with a single plant owe their success to the bees that found other plants in their range. Its not a coincidence that every year someone starts a thread asking why their lone tomatillo plant is not setting fruit. Here is a link to a thread from three years ago: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg080132591320.html ---------------------------------------------------------- This issue is widely documented on the web . Here are just a few examples: http://www.seedsandstring.com/2009/06/tomatillo-matchmaking-services.html The thing about tomatillos is: they are self-incompatible. This means that one tomatillo plant standing all alone will not produce fruit. Tomatillo flowers on one plant need the pollen from at least one other tomatillo plant's flowers in order to produce the tasty green or purple crop. This is a trait present in some plant species that encourages outcrossing, and thus more genetic diversity in succeeding generations. -------------------------------------------------- http://sparks-mexico.com/costalegre/fruit/tomatillo.htm The Mexican husk tomato is highly self-incompatible. When the flowering plants are bagged, no fruits are set. K.K. Pandey, while at the University of Ohio, studied this problem. He reported that only a few seedlings in a group produce rare fruits by natural-selfing and such fruits usually contain no seeds or only a small number. An occasional fruit may have 100 or more. --------------------------------------------------------- http://growingtaste.com/vegetables/tomatillo.shtml Vital note: Tomatillos are self-sterile, so always plant at least two! (So that's why the darn thing didn't fruit . . . .) Recall, though, that the tomatillo is not self-fertile, so that you must have at least two plants to get any actual tomatillos. --------------------------------------------------------- http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1990/v1-407.html Tomatillo is self-incompatible, so all plants are hybrids. Pollination is by insects. Cross pollination with other cultivars or other Physalis spp. would be possible if the plants are closer than 500 m. Here is a link that might be useful: 2006 gardenweb link

The vent helped. Your comments helped. This was a hard lesson for me. I've accepting my DH's first response -- which was pretty much the same as Jim's in the very first reply here. It's Good-bye and Never Again! There is no benefit for me in having any further contact with this gal. More 'stuff' keeps turning up: There are faint paw prints on our mattress pad. (I'd made the bed up fresh and covered dust-covered it before we left.) By going outside, I can see scrapes where dog scratched at the porch and French door screens -- before breaking through them. Branches were 'planted'. I evidently needed these 'last straws' to give up my wishful trust. My guess is that House-sitter is leaving town. She had said her mother was planning to remarry and sell the house here. She's probably moving downtown. It's where *normal* single adults live. Calling a locksmith. Changing the entry code on the garage doors. Hoping nothing serious is yet to be discovered.