Overwintering and trying to grow eggplants as a perennial

[applestar]

A New Project! I might be premature with this thread, but the success of these four has gone to my head, and now, I want to try to overwinter and keep my eggplants from year to year
Subject: 2015-2016 Winter Indoor Peppers

I was afraid to include eggplants in the topic title because I was afraid that would jinx them... But as it turned out, four of the overwintered eggplants seem to have survived.




I Uppotted them out of these ice cream containers into individual containers today. There were three in one container -- one of them with a white baby eggplant so presumably these are all White Comet. The other container had one plant left with flower that is lighter purple so maybe this is Diamond.

Both containers had worms in them. The two best growing, flowering plants each had a biggest worm in its roots. Gave the smaller plants their own big worms in the new containers.

When I searched growing eggplants as perennial, I had two promising hits -- one from California and one from Hawaii. Well, in the California article, a master gardener answered the eggplant question by describing how she overwintered peppers (once) -- Ha! Useless! -- should have gone with the Hawaiian result from the outset since imafan has mentioned hers grow year-round and year to year.

In the article, what they are doing is grafting culinary eggplant to a wild relative:Turkey Berry -- well look at that! imafan asked if Pea eggplant is same as Turkey Berry I have a Pea eggplant growing again, thanks to Pepperhead212.

According to the article, you can propagate Turkey Berry from cuttings and then graft scion from your eggplants onto the rooted cutting rootstock.

http://www.kumuainafarm.com/hello-perennial-eggplant-tree/

-- what? They describe those things as 6 ft trees? Oh no problem!
I will be aiming for BonEggy (a derivation based on Fatalii's BonChi ) http://www.fatalii.net/bonsai_chiles_bonchi

[pepperhead212]

That is the species of the Thai pea eggplant, apple! So you should be able to get some cuttings, for sure. I just put mine out, in its own 18 gal. SIP, so it will be growing, soon.

[imafan26]

Eggplant is perennial here but I replace them when the yields drop or they get too sickly. you can prune them back pretty hard and mine is in a pot year round so they can stay in pots. They like it a little warmer than peppers but will do fine if the peppers survive over winter. They can stay out as long as it does not freeze it get down to 49 degrees here around January, they don't grow much and they usually don't flower that cold but they start growing again once it warms up.

The turkey berry is a very large and thorny tree and is really hard to kill.

[applestar]

Still planning on pursuing the above project. But here are the four eggplants that over wintered.



I think they might be a bit demanding -- though it's hard to judge due to the mite, TRM?, infestation, which these four survived.
- two plants in less light and cooler location died
- two plants in more light and warmer location died

[applestar]

I think one pea eggplant cutting has rooted, but I'm going to need a lot more if I want to use them as root stock!

[jal_ut]

I don't grow eggplant, but it would seem their culture would be similar to tomatoes?

My wife just bought an eggplant from the grocery store....... hmmmm, maybe I should look into growing some next season?

[applestar]

Jal_ut, think combination of peppers and melons -- eggplants like warm soil. I'm having better luck growing them in large, well fertilized containers. They also seem to prefer consistent moisture, but they are also very deep-rooted and can handle surface drought.

In the ground, you might have better luck if you planted in raised/mounded rows such as you might use for melons.

Also, if you get those striped potato beetles, they also LOVE eggplants. In addition, I had the worst trouble with flea beetles on most of the eggplants this year.

...

PEA eggplant, on the other hand, is not bothered by tiny things like flea beetles, and as far as I know, potato beetles didn't bother them either ...and if they did, they hardly made a mark. HERE's why --


...yeah that's the southwest facing wall of the garage and the Pea Eggplant which I planted in the ground this year because it was ridiculously huge in the rubbermaid SIP last year is that HUGE Tree-like shrub with lobed leaves, white flowers and marble-sized round fruits. As you can see, it is taller than the rain gutter/eave of the single story roof in the near corner.

It is evidently not exactly the same as Turkeyberry eggplant since it definitely does not have thorns.

...

And I checked on those cuttings, and two out of four appear to have rooted