I don't usually trim mine, but some of those leaves are really close to the soil, so I would probably nip them off. Also, you will need to support them with stakes or a small cage. The bigger the fruit, the more support they need to hold the weight.

Keep leaves as long as they are green and healthy because they help produce the eggplants you hope to harvest later.

Never! The sideshoots produce fruit and contribute to a lot of the yield. BTW, your eggplants look gorgeous.

Need eggplant ideas other than eggplant parmesan? Try the website Ashbury's Aubergines. If you're growing small Asian ones - I like them Indian style, slit and stuffed with a spiced peanut mixture then fried in vegetable oil.

They look great! I always wonder about removing some of the bottom leaves, also. I have to get some of the bottom leaves of my tom plants taken off soon.

As for cooking suggestions -- there are infinite ways to cook and use them. One of my favs other than eggplant parmesan, is rattatui (sp)? It is good in veg soups, a lot of good stuff.

kc, a friend at work ask me where she could get an egg plant(fruit). I said I did not know anyone who grew them & then went out & bought a plant to grow her some. That was 3 seasons ago, this year I have 6 plants & 4 persons wanting fruit.
My wife likes them too, who knew?
Yours look great. I have never pruned them, a deer cut the top out of one & it just got bushy & keep on bearing.
I have 6 fruit to set & a million blooms, well it seem like that many.
I see no reason to change what you are doing, maybe mulch to keep down weeds.

Here is a link that might be useful: cooking egg plant

On another note, your soil looks really, really unhappy. It makes me cringe, because it's exposed to the dry sun and air.

When your soil is unhappy, the biological life within it is unhappy. When the biological life within it is unhappy, your plants are unhappy.

You need mulch on that soil - not those dyed woodchips - but organic mulch like grass clippings, leaves, hay, straw, pine needles, etc - anything that will decompose. Heavy wood or 'browns' being used as mulch will consume nitrogen that could otherwise be going to your plants, so if you have browns try to offset this by adding 'greens' too. Don't use wood chips though, even if they aren't dyed etc.

Doing this will retain moisture in your soil, feed the biological life in your soil, liberate nutrients to penetrate your soil, and it will provide organic complexes on a molecular level that are beneficial to your soil in terms of water and nutrient retention on molecular levels. It'll even buffer your soil against pH swings.

Try Fried eggplant
Remove the skin cut the bare eggplant into steak fry sized pieces.
Place in salt water to soak (So argue this is not needed, but the water will turn dark and it takes bitterness away from the eggplant. I soak anywhere from 1 to 3 hours depending what i am doing.

Mix a simple egg batter 1 egg to 1 cup flour to up to 1 cup water (bring water in a little at a time to get to a thick pancake mix consistency.

Drain eggplant from salt water and pat dry on paper towel.
Have something heating up with the oil of your choice to deep fry.

Dredge a few pieces of eggplant at a time into the batter and drop into the hot oil and deep fry til a golden brown.
Remove from deep fryer onto paper towel to catch drippings.
Salt to taste and eat away. It is not the healthiest way to eat eggplant but IT IS GOOD EATING!

This will take you to a whole bunch of egg plant recipes along with peoples ratings of them http://allrecipes.com/search/default.aspx?qt=k&wt=eggplant&rt=r&origin=Home%20Page

Last year was my first year growing Eggplant But I had a great year with it. One thing I found when I got blooms, I did much better helping with pollination. I just used my finger and stuck them into each flower moved them round and went to another flower to another repeating. When I started doing this, my fruit production increased greatly!

The previous mentioned idea of staking and support is a must. The eggplant are heavy! give a helping effort.

As far as the leaves, I choose to let them be and let nature take it's course .

You may know eggplant loves warmer weather my plants did not do much til it got hotter out then they really stepped up and things started happening.

I am excited this year, I have planted three additional varieties plus the standard black beauty version so I am expanding, experimenting and hopefully enjoying as well!

Black Beauty was the only eggplant I used to grow that would often be bitter. If I wanted to increase the chance of Black Beauty NOT being bitter I would harvest it when very small in the glossy stage. In contrast, I've grown Ichiban, Millionaire, Rosita, and Ping Tung over the last several years. I do not recall any of these ever being bitter, regardless of when picked. No salt is needed -- I've never really cared for salted eggplant.

Eggplants are diffult to grow, I got good crop last year but they always tend to get some kind of mites and then plant suffocates. I have tried sevaral treatments with not much luck. I will post pictures of my eggplant bushes that are going gang busters, but I am afraid already that mites are starting to come.

Behlgarden,

Flea beetles are more common on eggplant. Mine always get them, but I just live with them, and it does not seem to effect production.