Ground cherries will become a weed here. ;) Unfortunately flea beetles like mine, though they will grow and produce in spite of it. My kids like eating them (like candy in its own wrapper). You can dry them like raisins. They are ripe when they fall off the plant or are very easy to pull off the plant. Unripe they are pretty sour. I always thought it would be useful to put something under the plant to catch them when they fall, like a Christmas tree skirt, but up off the ground to keep them dry. I never managed anything like that, but I have put newspaper around them to help with collecting the ground cherries. They hold on the counter for a long time in their husks.

As bad as it sounds I'm actually hoping for something that is a little bit of a weed, lol. I've got a raised bed that I haven't even got a plan for yet, and I'm in the process of building a hugelkultur bed as well. Basically I bit off way more than I can chew and I need some sort of ground cover.

When I have grown them, they have been really late to produce. Waiting for them is about like waiting for tomatillos. Eventually, though, they do go nuts and produce a lot. Probably no earlier than late July or early August. I don't always watch the calendar, but I know it happens late. The plants get huge in the sandy soil in our back garden, appearing to like it more than the amended clay in our front garden.

They grow wild here and our locals did not even know what they were, I have never been able to harvest enough to make jam something eats them first .

I grew 5 plants last year from seed (baker creek) and they produced so-so for me. I think the squirrels stole most of them. I never decided if I really liked the taste though. If they come back up this year on their own, I'll probably net them and see if I like them better in jelly or something. I think they did produce pretty late in the season as dawn said, but I can't really remember.