Are Ground Cherries worth it to you ? Intercropping?

Helping out someone, I noticed a lot of groudn cherries in a fenced in garden (grand rapids michigan). She didn't really seem to be a massive fan of the, I picked a few of them. I should note that she has shown this area utter neglect and they are thriving. EDIT: to clarify, the plants themselves, fruit qty doesn't seem to be great yet.

Are they worth the space to you?

Can animals like rabbits eat the plant/fruit?

Are there good species to intercrop with them like lead plant , illinois bundle flower if one was going to establish silvo pasture / rows and the ground cherries just happen to be there also?

Thank you

I planted a freebie packet of seeds once, and now they come up forever all over the place, but never produce worthwhile fruit. At best there will be a tiny pea-sized orange “cherry” inside a big, sticky husk. But most of the fruits seem to shrivel or rot inside the husk, so I really don’t bother looking for them.  I think they want a sunnier, drier spot than I have.

They don’t bother me so much, they are not hard to pull up and pretty much just grow where I haven’t weeded or planted anything else.

My understanding is that they need a fairly dry, hot summer to produce a nice fruit. My family can do so in Southern Ontairo, and a friend managed it on a property which gets much more sun and heat than I do out here on the wet coast, but I see no reason to bother because on my land, the chance of getting decent fruit is very low.

They are great for tossing in muffins (fresh or frozen), my son happily eats them straight, and I've added them to things like Apple Crisp. So if they like your ecosystem, they will self seed and give you fruit, but I believe they're in the Nightshade family, so I wouldn't consider them a fodder plant without a lot more research. They're close to tomatoes and tomatillos and local deer are happy to eat those!

We planted a bunch this past spring.  They did very well here in 7/8. The early fruit mostly went to ants and moths but they continued to fruit and we got plenty.

Two challenges with them is they are sort of a "tweener" culinarily - simultaneously dessert sweet and tomato-y - which made it harder for me to use it outside of snacking, and they ripen at the absolute hottest time of year. Combing through the knee length fronds hunting for little tomato candies in 100 degree weather isn't something I looked forward to.

I interspersed them with Schwartzenberries (Scchwartzenbeeren) and they seem happy with each other.

Interesting ! Thank you !