How to Grow Eggplant

Days to germination: 10 to 14 days
Days to harvest: 50 to 80 days
Light requirements: Full sun
Water requirements: Frequent watering
Soil: Loose, well-fertilized
Container: Dwarf varieties work best

Introduction

Most people are familiar with the unique purple color of the eggplant, but modern varieties come in yellow, white or even lightly striped pink. The eggplant is also called an “aubergine” in some parts of the world. Eggplants have attractive white or purple flowers, and work well even planted within your flower garden.

Though soft and a bit spongy on the inside, eggplants are fairly high in fiber as well as potassium and manganese. Eggplant is not eaten raw, and can be cooked in many ways. It’s usually salted (and rinsed) first, to remove any bitterness but very young eggplants are fine without this step.

Starting from Seed

This heat-loving plant needs to be started indoors in order to avoid the cool temperatures of the spring. Planting right out into the garden won’t provide enough time for a harvest unless you live in a very warm climate with a long growing season.

Prepare a place to keep your seedlings that will be warm to around 80F or you will get poor germination. At lower temperatures, use more seeds to compensate. Get your seeds started about 6 weeks before your last frost date of the season. Don’t plant them very deep, only about 1/4 inch under the soil.

Transplanting

The soil needs to be warm before you can put out the eggplant seedlings, which means you need to wait at least 2 to 3 weeks after your frost date to transplant. A layer of black plastic over the future eggplant bed will help get the soil heated up sooner.

Keep your seedlings at least 2 feet apart when you plant them out. Dig up the soil to loosen it up, and mix in aged manure or compost.

Most varieties of eggplant have very large fruits (between 6 and 9 inches long, weighing up to a pound each), which can weigh down the bush. A large tomato-style cage is ideal for support but you can also stake your plants as they grow.

If you are going to use either of these methods (particularly the cages) you will have to make that decision at transplant time, not when the plants are fully grown. Push the legs of the cage into the soil so that the seedling is roughly in the center. The cage needs to be as far down as you can push it so that it’s securely anchored.

Trying to put a cage around a large plant will damage both the branches as well as the spreading roots underground.

Growing Instructions

Once the fruits start to form on your plants, keep watering regularly every other day. Eggplants are heavy-feeders, meaning they need a lot of nutrients for good fruit production. Use a complete fertilizer mixture once a month to keep your plants healthy and producing.

Containers

Any variety will work in a container, with most eggplant bushes growing no taller than 3 feet. Larger plants will need large pots, but you will have more success growing container eggplants if you choose smaller varieties.

Ichiban and Fairytale are two eggplants that are perfect for containers, and their fruits are smaller as well which makes support less important. Both of these types produce long skinny fruit, rather than the fatter type of traditional eggplants. Fairytale is the one with the pink stripes mentioned earlier.

If your main use for eggplant includes recipes calling for large slices, the skinny fruits might be more of an inconvenience in the long run.

But if you do grow these varieties, you can put 2 plants in a 12″ pot with no difficulty. Place them where they will get lots of sun. If you can set your pots out in front of a south-facing wall, you’ll get extra heat for your plants.

Pests and Diseases

One of the biggest disease threats for eggplant is Verticillium wilt, which will cause your plant’s leaves to wilt, turn yellow and eventually fall off. Once wilt has infected your plants, there is no treatment for it. You can pull up the dying plant and dig out as much soil as you can without damaging the nearby plants. If you’re lucky the other plants will be spared, but most likely they will all get it.

Its caused by a fungus that lives in the soil, so don’t use the same garden patch for eggplant each year. Rotate your crops, and that also includes tomatoes and peppers. None of these vegetables should be planted in the same area one season after the other.

As for insects, you need to keep Colorado potato beetles off your plants or they can do a lot of damage to the leaves. They have black and orange stripes, and are sometimes called ten-stripe potato beetles. Pick them off by hand when you see them, and keep your plants treated with insecticide. Also watch for aphids and flea beetles. The same insecticide sprays can help repel them.

Harvest and Storage

Eggplants can really be harvested any time after they have turned their deep purple color and have a clear shiny skin. Once they begin to get dull on the outside, you’ve waited too long. They still may be usable as long as you cook them a bit longer, and definitely salt them before using to get rid of the increased bitterness.

The more frequently you pick the fruit, the more your plants will produce. So if you leave your eggplants to the last possible moment, the plant will slow down considerably and you will have fewer fruits. As the season comes to an end, pinch off new flowers. This keep the plant from wasting its remaining resources on starting new fruits, and help the last ones grow more quickly for a final harvest.

Wear gloves when you pick your eggplants, as many varieties have sharp spines right where the fruit is attached to the stem. Gently twist off the eggplants, or use a knife to cut them off.

You can plan on getting between 3 and 5 pounds of eggplant fruit from each plant. Two or three plants is usually enough for the average family unless you cook eggplant quite frequently.

Eggplants don’t store for very long, so don’t plant more than you can use quickly. Whole eggplants can be kept in the fridge for about a week.

9 Responses to “How to Grow Eggplant”

laney belle castiglia Says:
June 24th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
thanks, this is my first time growing eggplants! i have grown okra, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, peppers, strawberries, blackberries, rasberries, and potatoes, but nothing has grown faster than my eggplant!
autum Says:
July 10th, 2011 at 5:29 am
Eggplants can be eaten raw, but I would recommend peeling the skin unless you don’t mind the skin. Other eggplant varieties are so small you’ll have to eat them skin and all. Asian makes some kind of salt dip to go with eggplants. If you have too many i would slice them up and dehydrate them, store them in zip locs then freeze. That will prolong the storage life, and they taste sweeter, but only if yours aren’t too bitter to begin with. Or you can send them my way.
JEANNIE Says:
July 13th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
MY PLANT WAS FULL OF SMALL PURPLE ICHIBANS AND NOW THEY ARE TURNING YELLOW and they are only 3-5 inches long, what is happening?
AW Says:
August 22nd, 2011 at 1:16 pm
My India Paint eggplants (Cook’s Seed Catalog) are turning yellow even before they grow very large. I do not know whether the temp is just too hot ( Texas in August) or what…… This is a wonderful variety!!

My question is “Can I still eat them?” or would the yellow color indicate a bitterness?? aw
Anna Ryan Says:
June 24th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
You can still eat them but they would just be a little bitter I had them before and it wasn’t that bitter just cook it and put salt on it and that should make taste good yum yum
clair terry Says:
March 31st, 2013 at 6:26 pm
my egg plant flowering but the flowers falling off before fruit develope
mauiboy Says:
January 3rd, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Here in 2500′ elevation in drier Maui my Black Beauties have all been turning yellow very early on. Even though hard, we salted and cooked some tonight and they were just fine. I am going to harvest all of them and see if the next batch start out purple. I had understood you wait for the fruit to turn shiny, but these went to yellow long before that.
Raquel Says:
July 17th, 2014 at 12:42 pm
my egg plant flowering but the flowers falling off before fruit develop
n alderton Says:
January 26th, 2015 at 12:42 am
planted eggplant seedling, fruit has arrived on plant but the fruit is yellow and about 4-5 inches long and hard, what type is the eggplant and can it be eaten/cooked