How to Grow Eggplant

Otherwise known as aubergine, eggplant is commonly used in a lot of vegetarian recipes as a meat substitute due to its rich, meaty taste and bulky texture.

As a member of the nightshade family, eggplants are closely related to tomatoes and potatoes and are technically a fruit!

Ranging in colour from the common purple to white, red, green, yellow, or black, these beauties are nutrient dense and packed with antioxidants, high in fibre, have a low glycaemic index (low GI) and may even have cancer-fighting abilities.

When to grow eggplant

Eggplant loves warmer weather and can be grown year-round in tropical and some subtropical climates. Frost will kill the plant off so ensure you plant once the cooler weather is well and truly on its way out.

Eggplant varieties

There are so many fun varieties of eggplant to try! Here’s a few that you might like to explore:

· Black Beauty – the classic, large, purple variety most of us will recognise

· Listada de Gandia – light purple, striped variety that is almost seedless and has excellent flavour

· Thai Purple Ball – very heat tolerant and mostly used in stews and curries

· Baby Fingers or Little Fingers – sweet flavour and very versatile – ideal for growing in pots/containers

· Casper – white variety with a mild mushroom like flavour and silky texture

· Golden eggs – yellow, egg-shaped, heirloom variety with a slightly bitter taste

How to grow eggplant from seeds

Eggplants are easily transplanted making it ideal to get a headstart on the season by starting seeds indoors in seed trays.

Sow seeds in good quality seed raising mix 5mm or ¼ inch deep and keep soil moist (not wet) until seeds germinate.

The ideal soil temperature for eggplants is around 24-32°C or 75-90°F.

Seedlings will begin to emerge around 7-14 days after planting.

How to grow eggplant from seedlings

Once your eggplant seedlings are 6-8 weeks old, and you have consistent day time temperatures of 24-32°C or 75-90°F, that’s the ideal time to plant out your eggplant seedlings.

Eggplants need full sun locations to truly thrive with a minimum of 6 hours direct sunlight per day or more if possible.

Raised garden beds are perfect for growing eggplant in – it ensures good drainage, and you can fill them with quality soil. Birdies garden beds [LINK to discount codes] are Mark’s raised beds of choice.

Plant out each seedling 40cm or 15 inches apart for smaller varieties or 70cm or 27 inches apart for larger varieties to allow plenty of room for your eggplant to grow. Lightly water the seedling in with a seaweed solution such as the Plant Doctor’s Seaweed Secrets (use SSME10 for 10% off your order) to minimise transplant shock.

Eggplants require a lot of water so you may like to consider using an Olla setup or something similar to ensure they get all the water they need. Mulching your garden bed is also a good idea to help keep moisture in and avoid the soil drying out.

As the fruits grow, you may need to stake your plant to prevent it from falling over with the weight of the fruits – the last thing you want is to spend more than 2 months growing a plant and then the plant snapping at the stem just before the fruits are ready to harvest!

How long does eggplant take to grow?

Depending on the variety you are growing and the conditions, an eggplant will take around 70 – 90 days to reach maturity. Picking the fruits regularly will encourage more fruit to grow too.

When to harvest eggplant

When deciding whether to harvest your eggplants, there are a few things you will be looking for. Colour is an obvious one – if you are growing the black beauty variety for example, you’ll be wanting to make sure they have become a dark purple colour all over. Typically, you’ll also want the fruit to have a glossy appearance when it is ready to pick. You are looking for the flesh to be plump and firm so when you press gently on the skin, the skin will “bounce” back to its original position.

Timing is everything as overripe fruits will become dull, tough and bitter. Underripe eggplants are typically just smaller and can still be eaten but you are just going to miss out on getting as much return on your gardening investment so definitely better to err on the side of caution and harvest earlier rather than later.

Mark’s top tips for growing eggplant

Try varieties that are disease tolerant to problems like tobacco wilt. A good variety with great taste and disease resistance is purple stripes. Don’t plant or sow eggplants following tomatoes

or potatoes in the same bed as these plants are related and can transfer problems like wilt or nematodes. You may also want to check out Mark’s video “What Eggplants Looked like 2000 years ago” for more tips.

How did you go growing eggplant?

Mark and the Self Sufficient Me team love hearing about your growing success so leave a comment and a photo below to let us know how you went growing eggplant.

If you had some trouble growing beetroot or simply want to pick Mark’s brain about your self-sufficiency goals or projects, you may want to consider becoming a patreon for exclusive content and email access for less than a restaurant meal each month!