I don't like eggplant but my brother does, so I had to grow them for a while. If the fruit are softball size, they are plenty big enough. I never noticed any real difference in their disgusting soggy bread flavor and texture regardless of when they were picked. If they get too large, the seeds may tend to harden a little, but that will take quite a while. Just pick a few at varying sizes and find out which size is the least disgusting.

Rather than freezing them, I would just pull the plants and toss. Had some once that were just diced and frozen, then later they were cooked in a casserole and were no more or less awful than fresh. I would just feed them all to the sheep. If you like them, you might try a casserole, either fresh or frozen, using instant stuffing mix, some croutons, shredded carrots, diced eggplant, some sour cream, and bake. Probably forgetting some other source of moisture, though. Without the eggplant, it is quite a good casserole.

Good luck!

Anytime you want - the younger the better. As it gets larger and older it gets bitter. EP is intended to eat as a young vegetable.

Ah a great receipe for them and eat/freeze. Eggplants can be wonderful. I normally harvest on size before the skin becomes dull color.

ML

Concur with digdirt and mlcom. Never had any problem with bitterness but they do get pithy and seedy as they begin to ripen (change color). Here is a technique for freezing that works pretty well

Here is a link that might be useful: Freezing Eggplant

In addition to the advice in the above postings I will add something from my experience in general since there are so many varieties of egg plants,small and big spherical to short and long cylindrical.Look for hardness as eggplant grows in size,they become little harder as they grow, pick the harder eggplants from the lot.Once you pick first crop water the plants and fertilise if necessry.Wait for 5 to 7 days after first picking and repeate the process. Secondaly they stop growing in size after some time.Now the information here and in above postings will provide some help in judging the picking time.This is from my experience.You may develop your own schedule for picking time after reviewing all these and similar info. from IT search engines.

After they are picked, refrigerate or not?

Thanks for the replies. I'll pick the largest this weekend and see how it comes out.
Thanks farmerdilla for the freezer site and, beeone, I have goats and geese next door "just in case"! LOLOLOL Nancy