Eggplants 2019

[SQWIBB]

@zipcode

• June 10th (fruitset)

• June 19th

• June 30th

• Harvested this on the 30th, this is the fruit at 9:00 (left) shown in the picture above

• July 7th

• I'm not sure which one this was because the wife unit harvested it. She is now banned from the garden because she took out some of the plant with the shears.

So I would say fruit set to harvest 20 and 27 days. for this potted plant.

[clkeiper]

wow. nice looking fruit.

[Gardadore]

What are you feeding the Rosa Bianca in the pot? I have tried growing that variety but never had good luck. Galina and Millionaire are my strongest so far this summer along with a new one for me, Mitoyo.

[SQWIBB]

This is the first year I ever really added anything, a handful of 10-10-10 once and a handful of Jobes tomatoe twice IIRC.

[SQWIBB]

One of the things I have been impressed by so far has been the skin on the Rosa Bianca.
We usually fry our eggplant and the black beauty sometimes has a skin that will separate from the slices after serving and need to be removed. This can be a pain because the slices sometimes fall apart and is more noticeable if reheating.

The skin on the Rosa B. Is much better.

Does this make sense? Sorry for the hard to follow verbage.
I will try picking my BB's a bit earlier (smaller) to compare.

[nyrfan]

I'm growing 6 varieties in 3-gallon containers this season: Bride, Fengyuan Purple, Kamo, Pingtung Long, Prosperosa & Waimanalo Long.


Kamo is furthest along, having 1 fruit a little smaller than a tennis ball.


Waimanalo Long's habit is much more compact than the others.

[nyrfan]

SQWIBB, Rosa Bianca's skin is more tender than Black Beauty. In my experience, it doesn't need to be peeled.

[SQWIBB]

[zipcode]

So burned the lone Ping Tung as well and tasted, and I am starting to see a pattern here. Last year I was disappointed in the white eggplant, two weeks ago I bought some Rosa Bianca (most probably, looked exactly like them) and they were underwhelming, and Ping Tung now joins them. All three are pretty much tasteless.
The thing in common: they are all white-fleshed. Now, it might not be enough for a statistic, but it surely is a trend.
The way we prepare eggplant, which I think is fairly close to what goes around as 'eggplant caviar', using very refined oil (tasteless) and only a bit of onion (the one with garlic is more common around the world, but the one with onion does exist) means the eggplant is the one that carries that dish helped a bit by some smoke.
And one can easily see the differences.


If anyone knows some unusually strong green fleshed eggplant varieties, please let me know, I have seen them occasionally on youtube, in some indonesian cooking mostly. Kamo, the usual big blacks, etc, are all slightly green fleshed, with most of the green directly under the skin only.

[Zeedman]

Originally Posted by zipcode

How is Diamond in terms of growth in colder times? Everywhere I see how it's supposed to the the standard for outside growing an I was thinking of trying it.

Diamond has done really well for me in Wisconsin, planted in the ground. It is one of the few that doesn't seem to mind the mid-summer cool streaks. Most other varieties I've tried succumb to the wilt that follows. It is highly productive, and has a fairly strong flavor. Did really well in pots one year too... very dependable.


Was supposed to grow Diamond this year. Unfortunately, this was the wettest start to the season I can remember, and my rural garden - where I grow the majority of my vegetables - could not be planted.


I am growing Gretel for the second time, mostly in pots. It really impressed me last year with its productivity, and its slowness to develop seeds. Like most white eggplant, the flavor is very mild; but personally, I like that. It absorbs the flavors of anything it is cooked with. The plants are covered in blooms right now, wish I could post a photo... no hosting service since PB locked out their free service.

[zipcode]

World's spikiest eggplant

[GoDawgs]

This was the one Millionaire plant yesterday with 13 fruits hanging on it, half of which were picked. After not having much success with the round types and after trying various long types, I've settled on Millionaire as the A-team variety.



Right now I'm taking a break but in the middle of making an eggplant casserole; basic spaghetti sauce with burger, eggplant, onions, peppers, garlic, mozarella. I'm cheating by using large can of Hunt's Traditional pasta sauce but added onion, garlic fresh herbs (oregano, parsley, basil, rosemary) and a splash of dry Marsala wine before dumping in the browned burger.

[zipcode]

If maybe someone reads this thread and wonders what was the conclusion at the end of the season, here are my final notes for 2019. So each plant got half a ~8-9 gal container, so let's say between 4 and 5 gal per plant, there is one plant of each variety.
My water has an EC of 1.3 mS (which is considered way above very high), and a pH of almost 8, so how good the root system is probably decided how well the plants did, and may not be representative how the same variety will do in a more normal planting conditions.

Production winner: Kamo, with 5.2 kg, so 11 lbs.
Madonna F1: 3.3 kg, so 7 lbs. It had Zn deficiency due to high pH, this one can probably do better.
Ping Tung: 2.1kg, so 4.5 lbs. Best looking plant, I think this one needed higher heat, or just isn't a great producer (in weight).
Thai Long Green: 1.8 kg so 4 lbs. Started well but kinda lacked vigour to continue.

Kamo seems on overlooked variety in terms of production, but also how slow it matures giving a bigger window of harvest. Also had very good taste, but two drawbacks. One is that it's kinda matte, shiny only when very young. The biggest drawback is the harder texture, more dense, making cooking with it way more difficult, this might be something that could be caused by container growing however.

Also all 3 OP varieties are known named varieties, which basically means that depending on the originating vendor and where he got them, a different selection, there could be fairly big differences among them, in terms of maximum fruit size, plant vigour, etc.