Your comments and tips

02 Jun 11, Margaret (Australia - temperate climate)

My plants are large enough and healthy - they get plenty of flowers but no fruit has started. Maybe thye need a bit more sun for this time of year?

Reply or Post a new comment

01 Nov 10, John Podevin (New Zealand - temperate climate)

I have just planted some eggplant seedlings in the garden (we live in Napier). How long will it be before they can be harvested?

Reply or Post a new comment

01 Oct 10, Carol (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

My egg plants and silver beet are getting eaten this has never happened before,can you please tell me what to spray them with,

Reply or Post a new comment

09 Jul 10, mrs livingstone (United Kingdom - cool/temperate climate)

Can you prune back aubergine plants. They have just flowered but are overtaking the greenhouse. Would be obliged for your comments. (new to this)

Reply or Post a new comment

01 Jun 10, Andrea (Australia - tropical climate)

I've noticed that some people find cooking eggplants a little tricky. The mistake people often make is not to cook them long enough and they taste bitter and unpleasant. I used to cook them mainly in olive oil. But recently I've begun cooking an exclusively indian diet. I have some lovely recipes of eggplant in yoghurt curry (you should be able to find recipes on the web if interested and eat them served with basmati rice and other indian dishes). The point I wanted to make was that in my recipes, I've discovered that one can cook eggplants very well under the griller without oil as the first part of cooking. I believe this approach would transfer to any european style of cooking them as well. Simply cut the eggplant in half lengthwise, place it under the grill element with the skin side up. Cook until the soft and the skin starts to blister. Its about 15 minutes but check. After this you can finish off the cooking by frying it in oil with the rest of your ingredients and it shouldn't require as much oil as if you were cooking it from scratch in the frypan.

Reply or Post a new comment

08 Jun 10, Chris (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Hi, another thing which works well for indian-style recipes is to cook the eggplant in a steamer first, instead of frying it which so many recipes suggest but which soaks up tons of oil. After steaming then just fry briefly in a little oil to caramelise the surface, or just use as-is.

Reply or Post a new comment

29 May 10, Kevin (United Kingdom - warm/temperate climate)

I planted two eggplants here in California and they not grown at all, help!

Reply or Post a new comment

04 Jun 10, (Australia - temperate climate)

Kevin, it could be anything! Not enough water, poor soil, pests? You could try a couple of new plants in different spots and see if that helps. Like tomatoes, eggplant like copious feeding - weekly feeding with liquid fertilizer can get them moving along.

Reply or Post a new comment

25 May 10, Elisa (Australia - tropical climate)

Can anyone help? How long can an eggplant plant produce good fruit for? I have harvested fruit from the same plants since 2008 but the fruit appears to be smaller than last years yield. Is it time to get younger plants? Prune the plants severly?

Reply or Post a new comment

27 May 10, (Australia - temperate climate)

Have you been giving them fertilizer regularly - seaweed folia spray and tomato fertilizer? Maybe they are just running out of food to make fruit?

Reply or Post a new comment