We grew Mollys and Pineapple ground cherries in our 4-H garden last year. Also started some seeds about 3 weeks ago and are just now looking like they can be transplanted into bigger pots. They were slow until the weather warmed up. Last year they were slow to ripen also - it never got really hot. Hoping for a real summer. The kids did like them.

Thanks Cedar, I won't give up hope just yet. Maybe theu would have been happier with a heat mat under them.

Are the Pineapple ones good too? I can't believe ground cherries are not more popular. Commercially must not too easy as I saw(and tasted them) at the UW Farmers Market for $20 a lb!

There was not much difference in the Pineapple and Aunt Molly. I did read that the fruit was poisonous until it turned yellow. $20 a pound!!!
One of the girls wanted to know if there were any more kinds of fruit to grow. She found ground "cherries" in a seed catalog, so we decided to try them. I had never heard of them before. I read that they make good jam and pies, but our ripe fruit never got far from the plants.
Your plants will most likely take off when we get some heat. I may keep one in my greenhouse to see if it produces earlier there.

I also grew ground cherries a few years ago. You can use pretty much the same techniques you would use to grow tomato starts. They do take MUCH longer to sprout than tomato plants, and they're a lot smaller as well, so I don't think you need to be too worried about them being small. Maybe they need to be a bit warmer?

Like cedar said they seem to need warm weather to really put on growth- even warmer than tomato plants need. When I grew them, my plants were healthy but they did not produce a huge crop, and the fruits took a long time to ripen (wait until the outside skin is basically dried up like a dead leaf). I wonder if the seedlings' growth is being affected by it being chilly inside your growing area.

If I were to grow them again (I only did it once) I would give them a cloche or some kind of warming row cover until fairly late into the summer, TBH I think they really aren't very suited to the PNW climate and they need an augmented environment to do well.