In one garden I had, groundhogs were the bane of my existence. Taking one bite out of every ripening tomato in a dry year just to get the juice. I put up a fence, he just went under. The solution was to dig a trench all the way around the garden and put the fence down about 6", fill the outside of the trench first with rocks, then back fill. He hated me for that lol.

Yeah I foiled his digging, he appeared to climb in. Honestly if I had a gun I would shoot it.

I just now noticed your location... that garden space I had was in Orange County, up in your neck of the woods. They are all over up there!

Yes they are everywhere... the deer too. You really need a greenhouse to grow anything up here.

Consider a single strand electric wire about 6 inches above the ground. Bait it with peanut butter. Nothing will climb after trying that.

Thanks, that may be my only option to continue gardening at this point. Between the bad Spring weather and the groundhog I have gotten virtually nothing this year from the garden, and if I didn't have 3 foot tall tomato and potato plants I would be tempted to give up for this year.

Does anyone know what is wrong with my eggplants? I feel like they are a lost cause with this wilt. It is a real shame they were really doing great. Maybe next year I will do some in containers. Should I try transplanting a healthy one into a container or is it too late?

Can someone also please recommend an electric fence system... I can't seem to find a simple system designed for a small backyard garden.

Check out the Tractor Supply website. I'd look for a solar one and see if it's comparable in price to a traditional powered model. When I lived up there, there was an Agway. They always had the best tools. I got a digging fork from then (lost through moves) that I just cannot replace for quality. Is there one around local to you?

As for the eggplant, this is the first year that I'm growing them myself (stepdad did alright last year, I'm going to 'one up' him lol,) so I don't have enough experience to know about the wilt.

I have 20-some-odd plants of Rosa Bianca... I love Eggplant parm.

So far I've battled flea beetles like you wouldn't believe (they absolutely decimated stepdad's, but the stress caused his plants to flower early lol... he'll have the first fruits... ugh.) Am now pinching 2 kinds of weevils and lots of those rainbow colored leaf hoppers (no pesticides allowed here,) have a funky looking beneficial bug that I haven't been able to positively identify, and can't find a local source for yellow sticky traps for the white flies trying to move in! Gotta tell you, these eggplants better be tasty, they seem to the favorite plant for every insect there is.

I had the same issue last summer. Half of each leaf would wilt, and eventually after a few days the leaf would die. Yet the plant kept trucking, putting out new branches and fruit, and it wound up being fairly productive throughout the season. Someone on here told me it was a textbook case of verticillium wilt.

Pjgooch, were any of your other plants affected?

Peter, it was the only plant in that bed. I had zucchini there the previous year. Before that this part of the yard was overrun by a wisteria.

Eggplant often suffers from that wilt here too... as does okra.

I went through a lot of eggplant varieties over several years after moving back here from SoCal, and nearly all were affected, usually around the time they began blooming. The plants generally died slowly, before they were able to produce.

There are two varieties that seem to be immune, or at least strongly resistant... Casper (white) and Diamond (dark purple). I've saved several generations of seed from both, and the plants grown from that seed are now usually wilt free. Diamond is the most productive, but Casper does well in cool years, so I always grow both.

I wanted to update this for anyone reading in the future. I found powdery mildew on the underside of the leaves, and read this could be PM's MO. I am going to try treating with antifungals and see what happens. If successful or if I have any further info I will update this.

Thanks for the update! So, you're thinking the original wilt was the powdery mildew?

I am thinking that yes, but still can't be sure. There is definitely white fungal growth under some leaves. I will try the fungicide and see what happens... the plants keep putting out new growth. I will update with my results. :)

I decided to skip the fungicides - the rain seems to be doing the trick - and I will give them a spritz with the hose in the future. I wonder if part of the problem is the overly rich soil. Honestly I am not sure I should have amended anything this year before planting, it just wasn't necessary.

Well it is still not over sadly.

I found a similar topic http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1476871/wilting-leaves-on-eggplant

This happens to all my eggplants once they reach a certain size. But then they seem to kind of outgrow it and manage to produce something.

I am still skeptical it is verticillium and not fusarium or some other pathogen, as the Kennebec potatoes that are "highly susceptible" to verticillium planted next to the eggplants are unaffected.

I take it back... I see some signs of verticillium on my tomatoes. I just assumed it was aging older leaves in a lack of sun. But they are supposedly verticillium resistant so I am perplexed. Horseradish is also supposedly susceptible but it grows huge in my garden. Must be different strains... ?

I read in the Cornell site somewhere that Verticillium is present in most soils in the Northeast.

I think this potato at the end has verticillium. The rest of the row looks ok. It is next to eggplants with verticillium. I assumed it was natural dieback but you can see it grew some nice growth since yellowing. Idk.

I feel like a lot of people deal with this in the Northeast, but it tends to not be all that noticable and written off as more normal issues if you don't plant highly susceptible plants like eggplant.

The potatoes didn't have verticillium. The one on the end had the biggest harvest.

Some eggplants recovered almost 100%.

Eggplants can be picky. They probably just didn't like the weather. Did you get good production?

I got decent production - more than I can eat so I can't complain - but we did plant two rows because I started way too many seeds. I don't think the weather alone can cause leaves to yellow and wilt (sometimes the telltale half of the leaf), but who knows.

As you can see in the pic, we've had a second round of flea beetles this year.

The saga continues... got it again this year. So far not too bad but it is still early.

I noticed a browning on the stems that looks almost like they were being chewed on by pests. Any ideas what this is? Could this damage be pest related? Fungal?

Eggplants are really amazing. Verticillium, early blight, and severe flea beetle damage, and they just keep churning out the eggplants anyway. They look terrible! (the plants not the fruit.)