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Thu, Aug 21, 14 at 21:07
| I have a black beauty eggplant and a cloud nine white eggplant that have a fruit a little bigger than my fist. The fruit have been growing at a snails pace for nearly a month; the plants are small and had a bad year. I am having a BBQ this weekend and wondering if I should just go ahead and pick them. Is there any way to know if they are going to get not so good anymore though still small? They still have some shine. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by Slimy_Okra 2b (My Page) on Thu, Aug 21, 14 at 21:40
| Eggplant growing is partially an art. Once you do it a few times, you'll get the hang of it. I would go ahead and harvest them for your BBQ. Undersized eggplants taste fine (actually better than full-size ones) but once they lose the shine, you've lost them. |
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| Thanks.. how fast do the fruits normally grow? We had a very cool year here... the eggplants peppers and the slimy okra I was hoping for did not do so well. Of course I'm a first time gardener but I am not the only one with issues this year... |
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- Posted by Slimy_Okra 2b (My Page) on Thu, Aug 21, 14 at 22:34
| TBH, I've never actually measured how fast individual fruits grow because I have too many plants to keep track of (around 300 this year). But usually, the miniature ones take ~10-15 days and the larger Sicilian heirlooms like Rosa Bianca take 3 or more weeks for me. I've never grown Black Beauty. I'm growing a white-fruited variety called White Star that seems to be the fastest one I've seen - about 10-15 days from pollination to fist-size fruit. |
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- Posted by lantanascape z6 Idaho (My Page) on Fri, Aug 22, 14 at 0:01
| Try to pick them before they lose their shine or start to get a little rubbery feeling. If they feel very firm, they're good, but as soon as they start to go just a bit soft, they need to be picked right away. A month seems like too long, they're probably not going to reach full size for that variety. |
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