Both my Black Beauty & Burpee Hybrid eggplant fruit are on the yellow side, and have been for a good part of the season. Both varieties have been hit really hard with flea beetles shortly after they were transplanted. I have started these plants from seeds for the last 3 years, and this is the first year I've seen this. I gave a couple of extra plants to a friend who lives 4 miles due east of me, who said his eggplants are purple. He also has used pesticides to control flea beetles. My questions are 1) why are fruit this color and not purple throughout; 2) how will I know when they are ripe and ready to harvest, and 3) will fruit this color taste different then if the skin color is purple?
Thanks in advance!
Yellowing Black Beauty & Burpee Hybrid eggplant fruit
These two eggplants turn a tannish yellow when ripe. Ripe eggplant are inedible. Like summer squash they must be eaten in the immature stage. Probably the beetle stress caused the fruits to ripen prematurely, before they sized up.
Why are ripe eggplant inedible? I think I may have eatten a few of these ripe eggplant.
They are seedy and tough.
Drive a semi truck up here. I will fill it with eggplant for you! Ours are producing like crazy, & big also. Lots of them almost the size of a football. We have Dusky & some Black Bell.
I have been selling them for 50¢ each. I get rid of 40 or so at every market. Also have Kermit, a long Japanese & Ping Tung Long. A total of 13 varieties.
Bernie
Thanks for the replies! I knew the older the eggplant the more seeds and tougher they are, but I didn't know if there was something harmful in the older eggplant, such as a chemical present that isn't in younger fruit.
CountryGardens, I saw the biggest eggplant I've seen at a farmers market about a month ago. I believe you have some the size of footballs!