Project Eggplant UK

Cafe Society
1

A few years back, when we started frequenting the south of Spain, and Greece, and Turkey, I discovered eggplants. (For the record, Eggplant In The Oven at Taverna Saita in Athens is probably the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.)

Of course I experimented when we returned home. The result was always a disappointment. Finally, I was forced to conclude that locally sourced ingredients just weren’t good enough, and the only way I was going to get hold of a decent eggplant in this country was to grow it myself. An idea was born.

In December of last year I bought a second-hand polytunnel as a shared project between me and my friend and fellow allotment holder, E. It was set up on her allotment.

In spring I germinated three varieties of eggplant for trialling. I planted out in three different locations. to test location as well as variety. And then, we had the shittest summer in living memory. I mean awful - constantly cold, wet and miserable. A month ago I had given up hope of any harvest. But then things started happening…

Polytunnel, in triplicate
Black Beauty - Failed (flowering now)
Bonica - Several good fruits
Long Purple - Failed

Outdoor, sunniest location
Black Beauty - Failed
Bonica - Several good fruits
Long Purple - Several fruits

Outdoor, less sunny
Black Beauty - Failed
Bonica - A single small fruit
Long Purple - A couple of fruits.

Here’s about half the crop, click for the full image:
Google Photos

After cooking
Google Photos

Baba Ganoush
Google Photos

And…It’s delicious. A ten month long project comes to a successful conclusion. And… what would happen in a decent summer?

I hope to find out next year.

j

PS - I get to keep all the eggplants, but I have to supply E with baba ganoush.

2

This calls for an international aubergine challenge. See you next year, with posts at different stages of growth! Let’ see who else joins the fray :slight_smile:

3

A brilliant idea! You’re on!

Anyone else interested?

j

4

The thread is set on “Watching” not to miss any answer and bookmarked for end february to start thinking about the seeding, varieties and so on. And complain about the weather, of course! With pictures, promised.

5

Our friends’ farm always has a nice eggplant harvest l, including Japanese eggplant. Delicious!

6

My eggplants are over, alas, but we had our best eggplant season ever. Part of it seemed to be watering the hell out of them.
We roasted a bunch, made vegetable lasagna, and also made a sauce with our zucchini and tomatoes, which is great with pasta.
The eggplants we get from the store, probably from Mexico, are pretty good, but not nearly as good as garden ones. The gap is much less than for tomatoes - I don’t even buy store tomatoes because they are so inferior to my own.

7

Set on tracking, for the same reason.

I’ve grown a lot of varieties of eggplant, with varying results. I think that best flavor depends on matching variety to specific location (soils and weather both matter.) And there are a whole lot of varieties available, if you start from seed. Trialing is fun.

8

I grew one plant last year in my greenhouse, in a growbag - it was a striped variety with roundish fruits (maybe Pinstripe or Raspberry Ripple); it did pretty well - I think I harvested a dozen fruits off it, throughout the summer, including one huge bifurcated mutant fruit that was like an inverted heart shape.
I cut it down in autumn when I was clearing out the greenhouse and it resprouted as though it was going to start all over again, but the cold weather killed it off. I think the plant might actually be a short-lived perennial (like a lot of other plants in the nightshade family) that just happens to function as an annual in colder climes.

9

This has been my experience too. My homegrown aubergines were great, but not really all that different from the ones I could buy (with tomatoes, there is no contest - homegrown is about a million times better than bought).
One thing that does make a difference though - tomatoes get cheaper in the summer here, aubergines typically hold their price.

10

I gather that it is indeed a perennial in a tropical climates and an annual in colder areas. The current plan is to seal up the polytunnel over the winter and leave the eggplants in there to their own devices. The worst case is that they die off - so what, eh?

j

11

Worth a shot - although maybe don’t seal it up completely - a little bit of airflow is good at inhibiting mould and mildew.

A lot of plants that are on the borderline of hardiness will survive better if they are not too wet at the roots - so drainage and minimal watering is probably a good idea.

12

My friend E - who’s the other half of this project - has already lectured me about the watering. :wink:

j

13

Eggplant are quite frost tender. They get unhappy if the temperature’s even down in the 40’s F, though they’ll survive that (it may ruin the fruit’s flavor, though; cold makes them bitter). If it’s going to freeze inside the greenhouse, they won’t make it.

At least, unless there are some varieties I don’t know about which have developed frost resistance. If so, somebody please tell me!

14

Following this with interest, as I have a newly acquired large garden, zero knowledge and bags of enthusiasm. I plan to install a greenhouse and lay out planting beds in time for in spring. When do you plant? Do you plant the aubergines directly into the ground from seed or propagate in a greenhouse first? Did you decide the polytunnel wasn’t worth it, and outdoor in a sunny position was just fine?

FYI I’m in SW England so probably having similar weather conditions to the OP.

15

I think you’re probably right - I mean, just looking at the leaves of the plant, I can sort of tell it isn’t something that’s going to overwinter well in the UK without at least some warmth.

16

A picture paints…

Google Photos

Click for the full image. There are three raised beds on the right - from the front: eggplants, eggplants, peppers and chillis. One bed on the left (eggplants) then a pot of tomatoes then a table with pots (more aubergines, peppers and chillis.

Re the eggplants: The seeds were germinated indoors in a very simple germinator (from Poundstretcher I think) starting 31 Mar. They were pricked out and potted on when they were big enough, and were in place in the polytunnel and in open beds on 25 May. I think everything ran late this tear because of the awful spring and summer. I noted that “long purple did not like the process” [of planting out in beds].

There are flowers in there because it was a joint project with my friend E, and she’s a fan of companion planting.

j

ETA - I should add that the eggplants were pollenated by hand using a paintbrush.