Ground cherries are ripe when they have fully changed to their final color (usually yellow or pale orange) and the papery husk around them is dry. Unripe ground cherries are tart and shouldn't be eaten, anyway, while ripe ones will have a sweet, fruity taste with tropical notes.

When can you harvest ground cherries?

They are crisp and sweet, and the harvest period can last two months or more. Ground cherries store well for several weeks in their husks in paper bags in the fridge. Ground cherries begin to ripen about 70 days after transplanting and continue producing until frost. Each plant can produce several hundred little fruit.

How do you ripen ground cherries off the vine?

It is possible to pick them a little under ripe, and they should ripen off indoors in the same way as tomatoes, but it's much better to let them ripen on the plant than off,so just keep the frost off them. The greener they are, the less likely to ripen off fully indoors.