Any eggplant I've ever grown here has performed perfectly well.

One key to success with eggplant is to wait for warmer weather before transplanting them out to avoid flea beetle damage. If I transplant them into the ground in May instead of in April, I see virtually no flea beetle damage. I'm pretty far south in OK, so folks who live further north might see flea beetle damage later in spring than I see it here.

If space is an issue, 'Hansel' and 'Gretel' are compact hybrids that don't take up a lot of space. Otherwise, I've yet to have a variety that doesn't grow well here. If you are interested in highly ornamental forms that you could 'sneak' into a flower bed, some produce green, white, violet, orange and even streaked/specked bicolored fruit.

Eggplants are closely related to peppers and tomatoes, so if you're experienced at growing them, just treat eggplant the same way you treat them but plant it later like you should with peppers and not earlier like you can with tomatoes.

One thing I learned about eggplant after moving here was that it is very, very, drought tolerant. During the extreme drought of 2006, I stopped watering the garden in late June or early July because the water bill was outrageously high and you couldn't even really tell I was watering because the poor dry ground soaked up the moisture like a sponge and begged for more water constantly.

Did the garden die? Most of it did. However, a handful of tomato plants (mostly the heirloom Livingston varieties), the eggplants and a few pepper plants survived. Almost no rain was falling at all that summer and fall, but the eggplant just kept chugging along pumping our flowers and fruit until frost killed it in Oct. or Nov. I'd never realized how extremely drought tolerant it was prior to that year.

I've linked a favorite eggplant source for you just so you can see some of the wonderful varieties available, if you haven't seen them all before.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Eggplant at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed

I grew a Japanese variety last year and it did wonderful!

I grew Listada De Gandia, Little fingers, Vishal, Thai green, all performed well except some flee beetle damage early stage. -Chandra

Eggplants love heat and humidity but are also very drought tolerant. Here on Phoenix, I planted mine next to my dryer vent and it loves the heat, even in the summer! My 2 plants are 2 years old. I almost lost them when it got down to 20 degrees three nights in a row but they bounced back and are starting to bloom again.
I have one long Asian type and one large italian type. I prefer the Asian one although I love them both. They produce almost year round for me and are the only things except okra and basil that produce in the heat.

I have grown several varities and the only white one i have grown so far was quick to get soft once picked.It had a good sweet flavor , it just did'nt keep as long as the purple and green varities. It was called white lightning.

I'm going to try gretel also this yr.

the long purple seemed to produce the most.it produced in abundance and was getting to the point i could'nt get rid of it faster then it would produce.

Well I guess it is a couple of weeks away and I'll do a Classic and hopefully a Rosa Bianca or Fairy Tale.

I know what you mean. Last summer I ran into Horns real quick for some seeds and forgot to lock my car door, 3 minutes later I opened the car door and there was a 10lbs bag eggplants in my seat.

This will be my first year for eggplant, and if all goes well with the weather - altho eggplant would probably be best in the hot, dry summer it looks like we're going to have - I will be planting 'Twinkle' eggplant, which only gets to about 2' tall and is suited for container growing.

Susan