Grow them like tomatoes as they are pretty much tiny tomatoes or more precisely tomatillos. Easy to grow but to my palate not much worth even that effort. Some people do love the sugary little fruit though.

Don't eat them green. They have toxic properties until fully ripe, when they tend to fall off the plant. Some varieties will keep for a long time indoors if kept in the husk.

Also, you will need at least two plants as they do not self-pollinate. Below is a long thread from the Heirloom Gardening forum. You might also search the Vegetable Gardening forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: ground cherry/cape gooseberry

How much sun would be the absolute minimum? I have an area I was planning for 2, where they get a good amount of sun, but it is kind of small on space. It is slightly less than 4 foot across and 2 foot wide. Another area I have is 7 foot across and 2 wide, but gets less sun.

I don't know how much sun would be a minimum. I think I would make my decision based on what other things I wanted to plant. If planted in part shade, the cape gooseberries would be lankier, at the very least. I don't think they are as picky as some plants, and some people grow them in containers.

How hot is your summer? Are there reflective surfaces nearby? Is the sun mostly in the morning or the afternoon in your shadier bed?

Cape gooseberries (ground cherries) thrive in poor soil, but like all fruiting plants, need decent sun.
They are ugly, easily broken and sprawling: gardeners over here tend to grow them in otherwise unused areas, out of the way.
The plants get very leggy and can take serious tip-pruning throughout the season. I reckon they'd be around 3ft high, 5ft wide. They're generally left to sprawl, but in a limited area, I'd put in 3-4 stakes around the young plant and run strips of something softish around them to contain it.
I grew up eating the fruit and still love it; finding them and opening their little cases keeps kids amused for ages. The best fruit is found lying on the ground when trying to tidy up the bush. Do not grow this if you don't like 'shambles' and 'plant' in the same sentence!

I have grown Cape Gooseberries (Physalis peruviana) for the first time this year. I treated them like tomatoes ie started the seed indoors and then planted out the young plants when no more frost was likely. The soil is clayey with liberal homemade compost and some manure. They get reasonable light but certainly not sun all day. They appear unaffected by any pests or diseases in my climate and have grown into 2.5 - 3 foot tall bushes. I have them about 2 feet apart. They do not sprawl particularly although I have given most of them a few twiggy prunings to relax against if necessary. They are flowering well and have many fruits forming. The gamble is whether they will ripen before the weather becomes too cool, gloomy and damp. Verdict - in my climate it is easy to grow the plants but the fruit crop is touch and go. I am curious as to whether it will overwinter for me as it is a perennial. I rather doubt it.

Hi,

I've grown a variety of Physalis peruviana called "Giant Groundcherry" which was very disappointing. Growth and fruit production when grown like tomatoes was outstanding, but the ripe yellow fruit had an awful aftertaste. I much prefer the wild Physalis in my area for fresh eating and preserves, and the regular Tomatillo for other uses in the kitchen.

I've heard that Aunt Molly's Groundcherry is a good, sweet-tasting variety that I would like to try.

It seems a bit late for any Physalis, unless you have plenty of hot, frost-free weather ahead of you still. If that's the case, you can very easily direct-seed these things, instead of starting them from transplants. In fact, I've found they do very well this way, and will even self-sow in the garden each year in my zone 6 high elevation climate

I believe there are two species commonly grown as Ground Cherry, Husk Tomato or Cape Gooseberry - Physalis peruviana and Physalis pruinosa. There are varieties out there like Poha, Cossack Pineapple and Aunt Molly's. Each one tastes a little different but all of them are affected by your garden's soil. You'll have to try all of them in your garden to see which one does best and has the most flavor. A lot of people that don't like them in the beginning end up loving them by the end of summer. In my garden once the birds figure out how to get at the fruit they take them all so I have to keep them well picked and cleaned up. I solve the harvest problem by planting them on a mound so that the ripe fruit fall into a trench between the rows. They do taste the sweetest if you pick them up off the ground - but this year the ants learned about them early and pretty much ate all of them.