Has anyone on the forum ever overwintered an eggplant? If so, how did you do it, and what was your weather like? I have a grafted 'Bonica' plant which I would like to try to overwinter. It gave me 5 good sized fruits (I picked them at about 500g/1lb) this year and the plant is still flowering now, even though it has stopped setting fruit. Here is a picture I took a week ago and winter officially starts today!
Kaelkitty, I've overwintered them but I'm in Phoenix, AZ where winters are mild - usually. We had a killing freeze in January of '07 and my eggplant got killed, or so I thought. I was ready to pull it out till I noticed some green coming up. I cut off the dead plant and it grew back up. But that's not the first time I've had an eggplant live through winter. I think they're pretty hardy plants. Sorry I don't know what your winters are like. Maybe if you post some info about your temps, others will chime in with more info.
I truly envy both of your winters.
Hi All,
Here is some weather info http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=23034 It is probably more than you really want to know. I would guess the minimum temperature would be the critical factor - our overnight lows in winter
usually bottom out around 7C/45F - they can go lower, especially if rain has been scarce and the skies are clear but it is unusual. We had one night of frost last year, which did a little bamage around the edges of my succulent plants, but that is unusual.
I have one question for Dyson, though. - do you envy our summers? Last year we had a record breaking stretch of over 30C/85F weather, nearly three weeks with no rain and many days over 42C/108F - that is not so much fun!
Ciao, KK.
KK, I lived on an island east (a long ways ) of the Philippines, west of Wake Island called monomia tora shima, for a year and though I got burnt up by the sun, I enjoyed the fact that there was, in fact no winter, The fact that the island was a chunk of coral with no real soil was a disappointment, but the weather was fantistic.
Oh and the lack of water was also a problem at times.
KK, I'd feel sorry for you except that we had 32 consecutive days of over 110 degrees last summer and 120 days with no rain. We had many nights that never dropped below 100. It's crazy-making weather and growing anything in that blast furnace is next to impossible. You just try to keep whatever you have alive till winter.
Hi Dyson & TF,
I have another question for tomatofreak - Do you have air conditioning? I don't and I find the hot nights in the summer the worst thing because you just can't sleep properly. What are your winters like in Arizona?
Ciao, KK.
KK, we have both A/C and evaporative cooling. In the early part of summer, it's usually really dry - right now, it's 11% humidity with a dewpoint of 27 d/F (-3C to you). This is the part of summer I can stand; the evap cooler lets me keep windows and doors open, at least in the a.m. Nights get very cool with the evap. Once the so-called 'monsoon', aka "haboob" sets in, the evap is no good; it just pumps more hot moist air into the house. That's when we close the evap down and turn on the A/C. I couldn't begin to live here with it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottorama/sets/651237/
I have no idea how I survived childhood! We lived in the South (MS), which is known for its hot, muggy summers with temps in the 90's and humidity to match. We had NO central cooling, just fans. No grill outdoors, no fan over the stove. I don't know how my poor mother managed to cook three meals a day. I well remember how hard it was to sleep. How do you keep cool?
Winter here is laughable. Usually. We can get freaky freezes; we did in Jan. '07. But generally, aside from a few frosts, winters are really mild. I've never lost many plants in winter except for the BF (big freeze) as we call it. I lost a lot that time.
Eggplant update!
It's DEAD, Jim! (or at least I think so)
Ok, it WAS doing fine. Then, I found out I had to move house, so I dug it up and put it in a four gallon plastic tub. Still fine.
I moved house on the 30th June and 1st of July. It was actually trying to grow 2 new fruit in July! then, in August we had a run of very cold nights - one down to 1.9C/35F and a lot at about 3C/37F to 4C/39F (That's too cold by my standards) and the baby fruit shrivelled up and all the leaves fell off. All the stems are now dry and brittle, but I am going to leave it in the pot for another month or so, just in case it resprouts.
I'll let you know if I have any better news,
Ciao, KK.
