
Your complete guide to growing tender, flavorful eggplants in warm summer gardens
Read Next
Types
The standard eggplant produces egg-shaped, glossy, purple-black fruit.
- ‘Black Beauty’ is the traditional eggplant size. One plant produces 4 to 6 large rounded fruit. Other regular types include ‘Black Magic’, ‘Purple Rain’, and ‘Early Bird’.
- ‘Black Bell’: classic oval to round, 6-inch, purple/black fruit; disease-resistant
- ‘Dusky’: classic pear-shaped, 6- to 7-inch, glossy purple/black fruit; excellent flavor; disease-resistant
Other interesting eggplant varieties include:
- ‘Applegreen’: oval, 5- to 6-inch, tender, pale green fruit
- ‘Bambino’: oval, walnut-size, purple/black fruit; 1 1/2-foot-tall plants
- ‘Casper’: cylindrical, 6-inch, snow-white fruit; mushroom flavor
- ‘Cloud Nine’: teardrop-shaped, 7-inch, white fruit; disease-resistant
- ‘Kermit’: Thai type; round; 2-inch, green fruit with white-striped shoulder
- ‘Rosita’: pear-shaped, 6- to 8-inch, rose-pink fruit; sweet flavor
The long, slender Japanese eggplant has a thinner skin and a more delicate flavor.
- ‘Ichiban’: 10- to 12-inch, slim, purple/black fruit; bears until frost. Expect a dozen or more fruits from one plant.
- ‘Little Fingers’: finger-sized purple/black fruit; good for containers. Small-fruited varieties tend to be especially heavy bearers.
Ornamental varieties are edible but of poor eating quality.
- ‘Easter Egg’ is an ornamental eggplant, usually white in color. (Not edible.)
Gardening Products
Cooking Notes
- Eggplant is excellent grilled, roasted, breaded, fried, or baked! The thinner varieties (‘Ichiban’) are more ideal for grilling and roasting and the traditional varieties (Black Beauty) are great breaded or fried; the round fruit is also good as a “boat” for stuffing.
- Use a stainless steel knife (not steel) to cut eggplant or it will discolor.
- If your eggplant is oversize, the skin may be too tough to eat. Peel before cooking or bake the eggplant and then scoop out the flesh. If you’re baking eggplant, first pierce the skin a few times to allow steam to escape.
- Many Italians will tenderize an eggplant so it’s less bitter. Slice them and sprinkle with salt at least 1 hour before use.
More Like This
Comments
Hi, Bill, and kudos to you! It's loving the hot summer and warm nights. Enjoy the bounty of your eggplant for "tomorrow" it will die. Eggplant is an annual, so you will have to start again (replace this beauty) next year with a new plant. (
You will, of course, practice crop rotation and not plant in the same spot/pot soil next year, won't you?
Hard to tell at a distance if it's a deficiency or a disease. Be sure that your soil has a pH of 5.8 to 6.5. Give it moderate amounts of 5–10–10 fertilizer, and provide adequate moisture, watering to a depth of 6 inches as needed. You might also bring a leaf to your local nursery or coop extension service. They might be able to identify the cause.
We hope this helps!
- « Previous
- 1
- 2
- …
- 10
- Next »
Some eggplant varieties are naturally small and turn yellow when ripe (such as 'Thai Yellow Egg'). However, if your variety was supposed to be large and purple, for example, then it might be a few things. Poor pollination will cause the fruit to develop a little bit but then stop, and may drop off; could the yellowing be part of the rotting process, before the fruit starts to fall off? Eggplants flowers are pollinated by the wind, but if weather during flowering was damp and humid, or very hot, or if the plants are too crowded, it can interfere with pollination. If you think this might be the cause, you might try hand pollinating your plants. Each flower has both male and female parts; just use a tiny artist's paintbrush to gently brush the pollen from the stamen onto the pistil, around in the middle of each flower. If pollinated, the flower will close and eventually the petals will fall off and a fruit will form at the base.
Sunburn, weevils, diseases can cause fruit to turn yellow, but more likely in blotches rather than entirely yellow, and for insects, there might be evidence of holes, etc.