This was my harvest today.
My eggplants and peppers are in full production !!
Enjoy
My harvest today: EGGPLANTS and PEPPERS
My biggest problem with eggplants are LEAFOOTED BUGS and FLEA BETTLES.
To protect the fruits from them I insert the eggplants when they are little on a pantyhose.
I have lots of old pantyhoses and I cut them, knot the bottom and tye them around the eggplant.
It seems to work to have a beautiful fruit !!
That's a lotta caponata!! lol
When did you set your plants out? Mine are just starting to set fruit I'm hand pollunating them so I'm sure they are true seed. Every year they don't set until now and I can't figure out why. They have been in the garden all summer and the plants look great. When a frost is coming I'll dig them up and stick them in pots.
Your look great.
I have planted mine in April. I had my first eggplant on June 7th.
After that they started to produce like crazy ... I am sending you more pictures in the next posts.
June 30th and lots more in between pictures ...
I am just showing the best pictures ...
I cannot download more ... DG doesn't allow me ... I will keep trying
This message was edited Sep 27, 2010 7:54 AM
What varieties are those? Its so strange the Eggplants I have in the ground and in pots are all just starting to bloom and its like this every year. I don't like how they taste I do think they are pretty tho.
I'll look foreward to more pictures.
Lisa
Black Beauty, Rosa Bianca, Dusky , Florida .... and I forgot ...
1lisac, I got my eggplant seeds from Seeds from Italy. I tried several varieties and they all turned out well. I didn't think to take photos as we ate them all =D and I'm at work so I don't remember the varieties, but the rose colored one turned out very well indeed! I haven't been very good about taking photos lately. I need to change my wicked ways--especially since I love to see everyone else's photos so much.
I grow a lot of veggies from Italy and Thailand BUT the eggplant always takes forever to bloom my neighbors have the same problem. I think the plants are pretty as well as the fruit so I'll just dig them up when its going to freeze.
Drthor- I have RB,and Florida also, with tiny fruit set.
1lisac, some kind soul--sorry can't remeber who--told me to fertilize the eggplant with rose fertilizer. I do and it seems to work for me. My soil is sandy loam (OK NOTHING looks like it is spelled right to me today!). I think that same person said that sandy soil is the most desired for eggplant.
Well, that might explain it. No sand here, I will remember that when I put them in pots. I hate adding sand the last time I did that I got root knot nematodes too.
I guess I am very lucky to have millions of eggplants. On my raised bed I have: 1/3 compost + Humate soil + 1/2 expanded shales
finally I can upload the pictures
Here some more Eggplants harvest. I love them !!
I was born in Italy and we ate lots of eggplants in the summer. Mostly grilled them.
The secret when you cooke eggplants is to let them sweat.
Cut them and sprinkle some salt on top. Let them seat for 30 minutes, in this way the water will come out and your eggplant will not be so chewy.
more ...
What part of Italy? Your pictures are so pretty. I love all the different colors.
Padova, 20 minutes from Venice, up north
Ahh... Geez a beautiful place. With great food.
I love eggplant, too! Any way with some sort of pasta is fine with me.
I didn't try them for fall this year, I'll have to mark it in the farmer's almanac for next year. I had a few plants left over and was just going to leave them to see what happened. Then a bunny decided that would be her nursery and the dogs found out. Luckily the babies were big enough to run out under the fence, so no bunny casualties. But the eggplants paid the price. Oh well, as all good Cub fans know, wait 'till next year! (There is a lovely Red Shouldered Hawk hanging about--not sure if he is after the bunnies, the chickens who all live in a coop or run, or the baby peacocks who are in same run. Maybe he will take care of the bunnies for me. I hate it when the dogs get them!)
I think EGGPLANT is the vegeatble that likes most our TX weather.
Constant fruit productions all year. More heat, more fruits ...
I love it !
more EGGPLANTS today !
I have baby eggplants, I swear I do.
each of those eggplants maybe 2lb !! It is hard to tell by the picture.
OOHH.. SH.......(teasing you)
those are some nice looking peppers, too!
Yes millions of peppers this time of the year. Yummy !
I am getting really good at this vegetable gardening. I have veggies all year around !!
Love it !!
Drthor,
Thanks for proving the pantyhose on the fruits does work!
I've been planning on trying them on the tomatoes in the springtime, to ward off the Leaffooted STINKBUGS! I was gonna buy some fine mesh fabric and make little drawstring sleeves but, hey, you've shown me a better way (FREE).
And I work for a company with a LOTTA women -- can you say, "Lifetime supply of pantyhose?"
Gymgirl ^^_^^ (doing the pantyhose bounce!)
P.S. Your eggplants look fabulous! I grew some last summer, and like Lisac1, mine don't take off until right at the beginning of the fall. Then they go crazy. They are heavy feeders and WATER HOGS as well, which is probably they did so well in the self-watering eBuckets I grow them in.
Finally found the pine bark fines Tapla recommendd for a fast-draining, well-aerated container soil mix. I'm starting all over this season with his homemade container soil recipe in my eBuckets, so I'll get to prove it on this next cole crop of cabbages, cauliflowers and broccoli. Since it is so fast-draining and moisture retentive, I won't need the built in wick or reservoir. But, just in case, I'll only lose 1/2 my current inventory of colander wicks. I'll use the other 1/2 as a control group and compare how the plants do in the new soil in both sets of eBuckets!
Linda
This message was edited Sep 29, 2010 1:56 PM
I should mention that my eggplants are planted in ground with black fabric weedblock/mulch stuff. I think maybe the extra heat on the roots got them going faster. I used grass clippings over the weedblock once it started really getting hot. I just pulled out an old issue of The Kitchen Gardener Magazine (now defunct). I found an an article from a woman who uses a strip of cattle panel domed longways over the eggplant bed and anchored along the sides. The highest point looks to be around two/two-and-a-half feet high. She uses this to let the plants grow up through the openings in the panel to support the plants. I think that will be on my list of new stuff to try for next year. Says she doesn't usually tie them off, she just lets them grow.
I can't imagine they would need extra heat in TX but anything is possible. Since mine always take off in the fall when it starts to cool off I was thinking just the opposite? Who knows I'm going to dig them up and bring them inside when it freezes anyway, because I have a few odd varieties,from Thailand, and I want to see what the fruit looks like.
drthor - great pictures and the eggplants look great. i love to make eggplant recipes.
Either Lowe's is lying on the wedsite or I'm blind, 'cause I sure didn't find ANY soil conditioner where they said it was.
1lisac, I think I just read about dark mulch for eggplants--probably in that same article from Kitchen Gardener. I think it was just a way to get them going faster in the spring. Once the weather turned seriously warm I just covered the dark mulch with grass clippings. I only planted six eggplants this year but next year I want way more. Next year will be the year that some sort of voracious, eggplant eating bug will descend upon my garden as the tomato eating bugs did this year. The pantyhose are a great idea. I'll be saving those all winter.
First I have to buy pantyhose :(. That's one thing about them coming on so late I don't have as many pest problems. I have them planted in 3 seperate locations and they are all just now setting fruit. Oh who knows..
Eggplants need a lot of full sun and heat. Also , I think they are like the peppers: "They like to hold hands" ... This year I planted very close together and I had a biggest harvest.
You don't need to use the panty hoses ... flea beetles do only esthetic damages. I am just a perfectionist and I like my eggplants to have no marks !!
I hate eggplant! Planted some because my son the Chef says he can fix them so I will love them, but he is working down in Phoenix because the economy is so rotten up here, so I am on my own.
I have black beauty and lavender-something. Some of the lavenders turn out to be bright yellow. instead of lavender & whtie. All are pretty small and I do not know when to cook them. I did try a couple and they are very seedy and tough.
What am I doing wrong?
If they are turning yellow, they are too ripe. Pick them when they are still shiny. Black Beauty can get pretty large, but some varieties like Egyptian Purple(a great non bitter eggplant) are small, about 1/2 lb.
I didn't like eggplant until I tried Rosa Bianca. It is very delicious.