Most eggplants have spines, even on the fruit stems.

I'm up on the border of MI and IN, and have had no problems getting fruit from the Asian type eggplants, they come pretty early, like 60 days. As long as you wait til after frost, you're good.

They do like heat, and if you want to use plastic, that's fine, but i think you'll be fine without it.

Last year i put them in my raised beds, and they went berserk, i was giving bags of fruit away from 6 plants. This year i think they're going into the regular beds with the peppers, no babying. They surprisingly even held up to the first frosts! I had asian eggplant in early October.

That is good news! Last year I had rosa bianca and black beauty and had no luck (no fruit), but I'm hoping the move to the south raised bed and using an asian variety will give me better results. This may sound dumb, but how large are your seedlings when you plant out? Or do you direct sow?

Not that big! I started them April 15th this year, a little late, with the main crop of tomatoes, so they're still little, cause i was afraid that this weird warm spring would mean a cold May. They're just putting out the second set of true leaves, but they'll be ready to go out in two weeks.

In my experience, if you rush them out in the chilly spring, they get stressed and turned into doilies by flea beetles, and may not recover. I like them to be ready when all the other ratatouille ingredients are!

I tried growing Ichiban last year, a asian skinny eggplant, and it only gave me 2 fruits all year. I bought it as a seedling from the local garden center and the plant didn't do a thing for a whole month after I planted it in the ground in early June. Granted we had a cold spring, I thought that was just weird.

This year, I planted Ping Tung seeds myself and just planted them out now. I hope I will have bags of them to enjoy or give away! :)

I didn't have the greatest luck with eggplants or peppers until last year when I mulched them heavily with grass clippings! The clippings seemed to warm up the soil (that's my best guess) and they did great!
As I said, that is just a guess. If you try it, be sure the clippings don't touch the stems of the plants.

AS already mentioned, eggplants, which belong to the big nightshade tribe,
Love and thrives in heat. In Northern cooler summers they can appreciate every bit of
direct sun to compensate for heat. The Asian variety, namely ichiban which is Japanese,
bear long slender fruits that are not bitter and grow faster too.
Last year I started some by direct sowing in the garden. It took for evere to germinate and grow.
This year I started some inside under light and bought few seedling
from HD. Now some of them have tiny fruits. You live and learn.

Good info. I tried eggplant for the first time last year and was disappointed. I am sure the freakishly cool weather played a part. This year I am trying a smaller, quicker variety. Hope it clicks, but this spring doesn't look much different than last year.

My eggplant starts are still under lights as it is still a bit early and cool here to plant them out. I noticed they seemed pot bound so I potted them up, hoping they'll get a bit bigger before they go outside. I noticed that almost all of them have one or two yellowish leaves. Is this from too much water, too cold, or a nutrient deficiency? Anything I can do? They seem vigorous otherwise.

What is the best way to prevent flea beatles? i had that problem last year and got almost no production. The garden center said i needed to mulch with straw but nowhere around here sells straw. Is any sort of mulch desireable. I put three rosa biancas out last week and two look to be struggling already (we had a couple sub 50 nights in DC area). I put my last two out this weekend. I will be crushed to not get anything this year as well. Please advise!

tomatomanic
I called around last year and eventually bought a small bale of straw (or is it hay, what is the difference again? one has fewer seeds?)which I used to mulch my raised beds. A good nursery should have it. Although I think you might want to wait for the soil to warm up some more before you mulch. Eggplants like it hot, I think you may have planted yours out too early. I am waiting for the beginning of June at least. You can try warming the soil with a plastic mulch. I read they like red mulch film... I might try it this year. For flea beetles try neem...

My wife planted what she thought was eggplant couple of months ago but we have some doubts as we are not seeing any eggplants forming; instead, we see bunch of spiky, green Âfruits the size of apricots. Is this an eggplant plant or weed? The plant is between 4 and 5 feet tall! I can email you the pictures if that will help.

tomatomanic, you can put floating row covers over the eggplants when they are young. Once they reach a certain size and when the weather warms up, they don't seem to be too bothered by flea beetles anymore. You can take the cover off then.

glee post a picture if you can, sure doesn't sound like eggplant. A datura seed capsule is the only thing i can think of that looks like what you describe. What did the flower look like?

Datura would be my guess too, offhand. The plant somewhat resembles eggplant. Don't eat it! :)

Well, my long purple asian eggplants seem to be thriving! All of them are bearing fruit, even the ones planted in buckets. I got impatient and harvested 2 of them yesterday, just to see. The flesh was still a bit green, so I assume I was too early? One was about 6-7" long, the other a bit smaller. Both were only maybe 1" in diameter. Anyone know how large they should be for harvest?

lolear,

You can harvest eggplant at any size. It sounds like yours are perfect. I find that young fruit are generally less bitter and they have fewer seeds, so I always pick mine very small. I also like to pick mine young because the frequent harvesting keeps the plants producing.

There is no point at which the fruit is not ripe enough for eating. Eggplant can become over ripe however, that is when the glossy skin turns dull - be sure to pick before that point. You will likely find that the flesh of your variety will stay "a bit green" regardless of the size. It is a characteristic of that variety, not an indication of maturity.

Potterhead - Thanks! Good to know. It looks like I am due to have an eggplant-y summer. Will these keep producing up till fall?
Thanks again.

Yes, they should produce up to the fall as long as they don't succumb to a blight or a wilt, which sometimes get mine in mid-late August.
Enjoy!

Harvested about 9 eggplants yesterday. Each were about 8-12" long! I left 2 smaller ones alone to get a bit larger. They are loving this hot summer. I cut them length-wise and made eggplant parmesan! Yum.

I planted a variety called "Long Purple". The fruits were very small, maybe five or at most six inches long, and never grew bigger no matter how long I left them on the plant. The fruits still on the plants are now turning yellow. Are yellow eggplants edible or should I throw them away? I have seven plants and did manage to get maybe 50 edible purple/white eggplants off them.