New to all veg and certainly Aubs...

[huntsman]

I have bought Eggplant / Aubs seeds without doing any research whatsoever.

Does anyone have some tips on how / when to plant, and germinate, etc?

[WVTomatoMan]

Eggplant is a slow growing plant so I start my seeds 9 weeks before plant date. I start the seeds indoors under florescent lights and supply bottom heat. I harden them off then plant them. They like lots of sun and they like it hot. They also like plenty of water. I have found that eggplants grow best in containers so I won't be using valuable garden space for eggplants in the future. They're fairly easy. This is my first year growing them and things have gone fairly well.

If you have any further and/or specific questions just ask.

Good luck.

Randy

Randy

[Wi-sunflower]

Eggplant plants grow faster than hot peppers but slower than tomatoes. I usually start mine after the peppers but before the tomatoes.

The biggest mistake most growers make with eggplant transplants tho is to grow them like peppers, in similar sized pots. Eggplants DO NOT like to get rootbound. When they are, they will not do well when put in the garden. They will take a LOOOONNGGG time before they will start growing again and won't set fruit for for a long time.

I always put my starts in a larger pot than you might think is needed and then try to get them into the ground before they look rootbound and stressed.

The other big problem with eggplants can be Colorado Potato Beetles. The larvae can strip a plant down to sticks in just a couple of days when they are bad. The darker stemmed Asian types are especially good as CPB "traps" if you are growing potatoes.

Carol

[mjc]

Don't forget to add flea beetles as a major pest...

[jeffinsgf]

Like peppers, eggplant do very well in raised beds. I believe someone on this forum or another said they like "hot feet". I had my sweet peppers and eggplant in the ground, in a part of my garden that doesn't drain all that well. They were languishing (at best). This was early in the season, just a couple weeks after setting them out. All of them appeared to be headed for transplant heaven, so I dug them up and moved them into the raised beds where the spinach and lettuce were bolting. Now I'm giving away eggplant to anyone who will take them and the peppers are absolutely loaded with fruit that is a few days from ripening.

Flea beetles have been my eggplant nemesis this year, but the plants seem to have finally established enough foliage that the flea beetle damage is negligible. Neem oil works, but must be applied in a strict regimen to keep the beetles at bay.

For me, eggplant germinate at a lower rate than peppers and take longer to establish both as seedlings and transplants. I am not using a heating pad, which I know is one reason for the germination issue. I'm watching Craigslist and Freecycle for a waterbed heater.

[Wi-sunflower]

in a part of my garden that doesn't drain all that well.

Yup that's a big one -- they don't like "wet feet." The leaves will get yellow blotches which I think is phytopthora (sp?).

This year we have been lacking rain and heat so they haven't grown nearly as tall as usual. But this week is finally hot and we did get an inch of rain over the weekend, so they are starting to take off, finally.

Carol

[huntsman]

Thank you very much for the help -

I will plant indoors tomorrow, using heating pads and lights, but one thing confuses me:

Randy mentions that he will grow in containers, and Carol feels that will root bind them...pls clarify?

Oh, at what size are the best picked? Does it matter?

[Wi-sunflower]

When i mentioned containers I was talking about the size for growing the transplants. Many greenhouses here put the plants in a typical 3 or 4 pack and that is just too small. I use a 36 or even a 24 pack (36 cups in a whole flat) Much larger.

For growing in a "container" tho I think Randy is using at least a 2 gallon or bigger pot. i grew some in 3 gal pots last year and while it worked, I should have used even bigger pots as they kept falling over. Or possibly he's using one of the grow boxes mentioned on the DIY part of this board.

Carol

[Wi-sunflower]

Sorry I forgot about the size question.

Size doesn't mater. There is no such thing as "ripe" for an eggplant either except if you want to save seeds.

It mainly depends on what recipe youwant them for. I have customers that want them small as a hen's egg for a certain recipe and the same customers want them huge for other recipies. I usually try to pick whenever they are bigger than a standard beer can.

Carol

[huntsman]

Gotcha, thanks!

I have something called 'Black Beauty' which seems to be the only variety in the shops here, and I'll give them a bash, using your suggestions later today.

Can't wait to get to the 'recipe' stage of my growing...!

Oh, almost forgot: How long roughly from germination to harvest?

[bboomer]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

Eggplant plants grow faster than hot peppers but slower than tomatoes. I usually start mine after the peppers but before the tomatoes.

The biggest mistake most growers make with eggplant transplants tho is to grow them like peppers, in similar sized pots. Eggplants DO NOT like to get rootbound. When they are, they will not do well when put in the garden. They will take a LOOOONNGGG time before they will start growing again and won't set fruit for for a long time.

I always put my starts in a larger pot than you might think is needed and then try to get them into the ground before they look rootbound and stressed.

The other big problem with eggplants can be Colorado Potato Beetles. The larvae can strip a plant down to sticks in just a couple of days when they are bad. The darker stemmed Asian types are especially good as CPB "traps" if you are growing potatoes.

Carol

Hi Carol,
Good post! Maybe you can help with a problem. This year instead of using peat pots for my eggplants, I bought "100% peat free" pots for my eggplants. It looked like a good idea, saving the peat bogs and all, but the eggplant seedlings I planted in them are still tiny. They have been in the ground for three months now. On the other hand, the seedlings I bought at the farmers market (in plastic six packs) are big and about to produce fruit.
Now that I have checked out the producers web site I see that they are made out of coir, coconut fiber. Those things are tough! The old pots I threw in the compost heap are still there.
Has anyone else had experience with these indestructable pots?

[Wi-sunflower]

Hi bboomer,

Eggplants are late this year here in Wi, mostly du to the lack of heat, but the dry weather too. We just started picking some last week.

I've never used the coir pots and only used peat a few times over 20 years ago. I didn't like the peat as the plants can dry out if you aren't careful to get the WHOLE pot well under the ground. Now I just use the plastic pots, but for eggplants I use a 3601. That's only 36 plants in a whole 10/20 flat. When the plants and weather are ready, we just pull them from the pots and plant using an old cabbage transplanter.

I mix my own potting mix as most of the pre-mixed stuff is too fine for me (it falls thru the holes in the pots too much) and has too much peat. I buy the big bales of peat, bags of perlite and vermiculite. Personally I prefer the Fafard brand of peat as it's compressed more, so you get more. Plus it's screened better so you get less "sticks" that you need to pull out. I do a straight 1-1-1 mix. I used to like to add 1 part black sand from our farm, but that introduces too many weed seeds. I also add some surfactant to my water mix too because when peat gets dry, it's hard to get it wet again. Peat has a wax-like coating that repells water when it's dry.

I'm not sure what will help your plants in the coir for this year tho. The only thing I can think of would be to be sure to water them well with a surfactant (a bit of original Dawn dish soap is good) and some liquid fert solution, to be sure the roots have what they need to break thru.

And pray we have a late frost here this year. So much of our crops are about a month behind as of this week. It's not just me and you either. There is just about no eggplant yet at the Madison market and very little ripe tomatoes other than cherries and greenhouse grown large tomatoes. My watermelon plants look like they normally do around the beginning of July and have very few set on them yet. The last 2-3 years we had melon on top of melon in the field by now.

If you ever get to the Madison farmers market on a Saturday, stop by and say hello. We will actually have a decent amount of tomatoes this Sat, tho none of them are labeled this picking as we are still only getting a few / variety. My stand is near the North corner across from a restaurant called "The Old Fashioned".

We are also going to have a tomato tasting at the farm near West Bend on Aug 30, the Sunday before Labor Day. Hopefully we will have close to 300 varieties ready.

Good luck with your eggplants,
Carol

[jeffinsgf]

Bboomer,

The "theory" of plantable pots sounds good, but in my experience the practice leaves a lot to be desired. They just never break down like the manufacturers say they will. I've abandoned them. Since I just start for myself and only plant about 5000 square feet with a wide variety of vegetables, I use 1801 deep trays for just about everything. That gives each plant about a 3" square cell, 4" deep. At less than a dollar a tray, I'm pretty sure they're no more expensive than using Solo cups, and a heck of a lot more convenient, and I know they're less expensive than peat or coir. If I use them over again (which I usually do) it assuages the guilt of using plastic.

Edited to Add:

I wish you guys were close enough to share. I'm covered up in Ping Tung and Listada de Gandia eggplant.

[WVTomatoMan]

Yeah, when I was referring to containers I was talking about growing them in containers vs. growing them in the ground. The ones in the containers are doing much better than the ones in the ground.

When I potted up I put mine in 3.5 inch x 3.5 inch containers. That's 18 per flat. That is the size container I recommend for eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers. IMHO you don't want to stiffle root development. After the 3.5 inch containers I put them in the containers in the attached photos.

I'm attaching a couple of pictures of my eggplants in containers. I apologize for the quality, but since dropping my camera on the floor the pictures haven't been very good. I'm still researching for a replacement. But, I digress. In the first picture Hansel is on the left and Black Beauty is on the right. The fruit shown in the picture got to be decent sized )about 2.5 lbs.) I've got pictures of it at full size at home, when I get a chance I'll try to post. The other fruit on that plant didn't get as big - each one was about a pound or so when I picked them. In the second picture it is the same Black Beauty plant on the left and a Rosa Bianca on the right. And if you check my Ping Tong Long thread there is a picture in there with several fruit on the plant.

BTW, for peppers and eggplants I use the small cone shaped cages. They call them tomato cages, but if they're for tomatoes it's only dwarfs. In other words the cages suck for big honkin' indeterminates, but are great for peppers and eggplants.

Randy

p.s. As far as those peat pots that are supposed to dissolve/break down in the soil. I don't recommend them. They don't break down like they're supposed to and IMHO they inhibit root development. Again I don't believe in stiffling root development.

[huntsman]

Hey Randy ~

Thanks for the clarity. Are those pots pictured, the final size for an eggplant bush?