Eggplant

I am very happy to be back. So rather than spoil my first entry, after such a long absence, with a Bambi diatribe I prefer to gush about my beautiful eggplant setting fruit (and from such unpromising beginnings). Unlike my tomatoes, the eggplant germination was a bit low this year. Add to that the unfortunate greenhouse slug problem and, well, you get the picture. I imagined I would be without enough varieties of one of my favorite garden plants so I bought (!!) two additional varieties at the Jackson County Master Gardeners Spring Garden Fair. Of course, at that point my seeded plants suddenly took off. Varieties this year:

Rosa Bianca
Louisiana Long Green
Vittoria
Lavender Touch
Bride
Antigua
White Cloud

The selections seem a little heavy on the bicolors but I have a special fondness for the beautiful lavender, rose and white streaks that many exhibit.

Eggplant are so voluptuous. Right from the beginning, with the beautiful scalloped foliage and the huge lavender flowers, they beg to be drawn, painted or photographed. The pendulous fruit epitomize high summer here in southern Oregon. Our season is barely long enough and the nights stay cool often into June, resulting in eggplant that seem to pout. But when the summer weather settles in the plants respond. Add fertilizer to these heavy feeders (I tried a great one this year from Golden Harvest Organics) and the rewards begin in late July and early August. Why look…here we are now!

Here is the always lovely Rosa Bianca: