- Eggplant is one of those summer crops
that some people plant
and some people absolutely can't stand.
But if you love eggplant, but can't seem to grow it,
then this video is for you.
Eggplant or solanum melongena is actually related
to tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, all of those plants.
It's a solanaceous crop.
It's native to Asia and India,
and in that band of the world,
it is grown as a perennial plant.
You can grow it over and over and over again,
because it doesn't get killed by the cold.
But for most of us growing here in America
or wherever you're watching,
chances are that you're gonna be growing eggplant
as an annual.
So let's talk about some varieties first,
and at the end of the video,
I'm actually gonna harvest,
what I think is the biggest eggplant,
I've personally ever grown.
So stay tuned for that.
But with eggplant, you actually have incredible variety,
as far as the color, the shape and the size.
From color, you can get a pure white eggplant,
all the way down to the more classic, dark purple,
maybe even blackish.
Sometimes there's even green eggplants,
pale cream-ish colors.
So lots of different colors,
lots of different shapes as well.
You can get them that are basically just a sphere
a little ball-style eggplant,
all the way down to the Japanese style eggplants
that are very, very long and thin.
Then the ones that we typically grow
here in America most commonly,
are ones like Black Beauty,
which have that classic eggplant emoji type of shape,
where it's that sort of thicker bell,
sort of structure there.
And then as far as the size,
you can get very small ones like a Patio Baby,
is a good example of that,
and great if you're growing in a container,
all the way up to some absolutely honking massive ones,
like the one I'll show you at the end of the video.
If you're looking for a specific variety selection,
then we have you here at Epic Gardening,
check out the Italian varieties first.
You have Rosa Bianca, Traviata and Beatrice.
These are the ones you're probably gonna see
in an American supermarket.
The flesh is a little bit less firm
and a little bit more sweet.
And these eggplants tend to be on the smaller side.
Next up, if you wanna go into the more Asian varieties,
the Chinese and Japanese specifically,
you have Purple Shine and Shoya Long.
These tend to be a longer and more slender,
kind of stretched out looking eggplant.
They're quite prolific.
The skin is a little bit more tender
and they can be very, very good eaters.
Finally, for the Thai eggplants,
you can go with Petch Siam or Thai Round.
Thai Round's the one that I've grown quite a bit of.
They tend to be green.
They tend not to be purple,
and they're no larger than about a golf ball or so.
So they can be quite prolific,
if you grow the plant correctly,
which we're gonna get into right now.
All right, let's talk about
how to grow incredible eggplants.
This is one of my more successful patches that I've grown.
As you can see, they do get somewhat tall,
about three, maybe four feet, depending on the variety,
but we need to rewind and talk about starting from seed.
You're gonna only get access
to some of those varieties I mentioned,
if you start them from seed.
Some of them are a little more rare, a little more specialty
and you're not gonna find them at a nursery.
So when you're talking about starting eggplant seeds,
you really can mimic mostly what you would be doing
for tomatoes and peppers.
Remember, they're in the same family.
The seeds actually look quite similar.
But what I would say is,
if you're especially in a cold zone,
you have to start eggplant seeds indoors, under lights,
and provide some sort of bottom level heating,
because they're gonna germinate a lot faster.
It's probably about two-ish weeks or so,
if you're giving them optimal conditions,
so start them in a cell tray or a flat
or whatever your method is,
but make sure that you don't cover 'em too, too much.
Maybe about a quarter inch or so.
Give them enough moisture, give 'em enough heat and light,
especially once they germinate and you'll be good to go.
And then the real secret there is eggplants love heat.
If you're talking about tomatoes, peppers and eggplants
in the same family and looking at their care,
eggplants love heat the most of all three of those crops,
even more than peppers, believe it or not.
These eggplant only started to take off, for example,
once the heat of the summer really started to kick in.
My tomatoes and peppers were already cranking
at that point in time.
So if you're starting from seed and bringing them outdoors,
you need to wait until it's at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit,
if not even more warm outside,
and go through a light hardening off process.
Otherwise, your eggplants are going to get shocked
by where you're deciding to put them.
And speaking of, let's talk about positioning and place
in the garden.
As you can see back here,
this is the back garden here at Epic Gardening.
I have the sun coming in over here from the east,
setting over there in the west.
There is no point in the day,
where this patch is not accessing sun,
unless of course, the clouds are out
and it's not going to actually give sun.
But this is a full sun, high heat plant.
It's gonna thrive in 70 to 90 degrees.
And it wants an ample amount of water,
especially as it's developing those juicy eggplant fruit,
actually botanically, they're a berry.
So for its care, mulch the ground,
whether it's micro bark, wood chips, compost,
a few inches of mulch will really, really help.
And you don't have to do much,
unlike peppers or especially tomatoes,
as far as it's pruning.
You don't actually have to prune eggplant at all,
if you don't want to.
And I would really caution you against pruning too much
of this upper foliage,
because you wanna protect the delicate and tender
eggplant skin from being blasted by the heat.
It's a plant that loves the heat,
but the fruit itself wants to be a little protected
in this under canopy.
So as far as it's care, it's actually quite simple,
but you just need to not violate the principles.
It wants a lot of sun, an ample amount of moisture,
and you can fertilize it,
much as you would fertilize a tomato or a pepper.
A good all-purpose granular organic fertilizer,
when you plant it out.
If you want to, you can water in
a little bit more heavy on the P and K side,
as it starts to fruit.
I haven't found it to be super necessary
to go very specific.
I'll just give it a nice amendment at the start,
let it ride the season out,
and then I'll amend the bed when we harvest it,
which we'll do in a second.
But a quick note for you container growers.
I've got a grow bag here.
This is, ooh, a heavy root pouch.
This is a 15 gallon.
I think you can probably pull off
about a seven to a 10 gallon with an eggplant.
But an eggplant, for those of you,
who are on a balcony or patio,
is a fantastic summer crop to experiment with,
'cause you can use that container to kinda chase the light.
Just make sure you're choosing a variety
like Fairytale or Patio Baby,
some of these that are a more compact plant.
This one produces a monster honking eggplant,
that's probably not gonna do well on your patio.
You want one that produces little, small, delicious ones
that you can slice up for your meals.
Speaking of, let's get down to harvest this honker.
All right, just a moment of truth,
I will confess to you,
this is a slightly disturbing looking eggplant.
So just prepare yourselves, but it is a large one.
And speaking of harvesting,
you wanna make sure that you do not wait too long.
It can go too long.
But you want the skin to be nice and glossy,
a little shine to it.
You don't wanna start seeing it go yellow or brown.
It's gonna be over rip and it's really not gonna taste good.
So on eggplants, it's much better to harvest younger
and bias towards that younger side,
'cause you don't want those seeds
to be fully developed in there,
it's just not gonna be a good flavor profile.
So let's take a look at this eggplant.
I have selected my target here, my friends.
Now, unlike a pepper or tomato,
you can kinda get away with just like ripping it off.
Eggplant is a much more sturdy plant.
So this stem connection here, it's called a peduncle,
weird, weird name.
But you just wanna come through,
really use your pruning shears,
don't try to rip it off.
And take a look at that.
Now this, dare I say, may even be a little bit too late.
I'm not quite sure.
I'm gonna cut this open and kinda show you
what's going on here.
But pretty solid looking eggplant.
You wanna leave this on.
And it's time to open it up and show you what's going on.
So I've got my big honking eggplant, and I also picked one,
it's a little bit smaller and more thin.
This is actually off the same plant.
So let's take a look.
Like I said, you wanna make sure
that the seeds are not really well developed.
So I could be off.
I may have actually missed my harvest window here.
So I'm gonna take a cross section of this for you,
and just give you a sense of what we're working with.
And that's actually pretty good.
So normally what you'd see,
and you can even see a tiny little bit developing,
is a ton of seeds in here if you've harvested too late.
So I'm not even gonna cut this one open,
because I wanna preserve this.
I'm sure this is in a good position.
With eggplant, you wanna make sure
that you harvest early and often,
not only for the freshness and the taste,
but also to keep that production going.
Because you know, I let this honker go for quite some time.
And if I had harvested this perhaps a little bit earlier,
then maybe I'd have more that look like this.
But eggplant, in the kitchen,
it's really more of a flavor soaker.
It's sort of this spongy texture.
I personally haven't quite figured out the perfect way
to enjoy it, that I absolutely love.
Maybe you'll see that over on the Epic Homesteading Channel,
which I encourage you to subscribe to.
But until next time, my friends, keep growing eggplant,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
(upbeat music ending)