Re: Transplanting Eggplants

It normal for plants to apparently do nothing after transplantation.  They
are growing root systems that harvest nutrients for the soil for foliage
growth.  Unless your day time temperatures are very cold, don't worry about
the slow growth in the beginning.  Also, most eggplants take 90 days or more
to produce a fruit from the transplant stage.  If your growing season (you
did not state where you are physically) is 100 days or less, there is not
enough heat and sun available for maturity.  To counteract this, start your
seeds indoors a little earlier than normal.  Pot the transplants up into 10
inch containers.  Set them out in the sun during the day or continue to grow
them under horticultural lights.  By outdoor planting time, you will have
bigger plants that have a jump start on the season.  Also, lay black plastic
over the ground, cut a slit for the transplant and plant it in the ground
through the slit.  The black plastic will gather heat from the sun, making
the eggplants grow faster.  They love heat.

About your flea beetles.  Yes, heavy damage saps a plant's vigor.  After
transplanting, start spraying eggplants with neem seed oil every ten days.
You will have NO tiny holes, I promise.  You can buy neem under the name
Fruit, Nut & Vegetable Spray from Greenlight or as Fungicide3 from Schultz.
The latter is available at most Wal-marts.

If your eggplants are bitter, one of two things can be going on.  First, you
may be picking them too late.  Pick when fruits are glossy and the size of a
hen's egg for white eggplant.  Second, the plants may be stressed for water.
This will cause alkaloids that produce a bitter flavor to form.  Hope some
of this helps.
Doreen Howard

-----Original Message-----
From: laythss <laythss@yahoo.com>
To: veggie-list@eskimo.com <veggie-list@eskimo.com>
Date: Sunday, July 08, 2001 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: Transplanting Eggplants


>  Well First of all I am transplanting the plants when they have 2- 4 true
>leaves (is this too early?)
>  After transplanting them They are stunned, no growth is noticed, leaves
>are still green, but after about 3-4 weeks the leaves start looking (as you
>mentioned) like Swiss cheese, with little holes in them (probably from flea
>beetles -I think that is what they are called-)
>  My concern is why are they being stunned for so long? I am germinating
the
>seeds in these moss pots, so I do not have to disturbed the roots so much.
>The only time I had a crop with eggplants is when I direct seeded them in
>mid June, but the crop I got for the White eggplants were really bitter,
>whether they were picked small or large (they were supposed to be a sweet
>variety) any ideas about that?
>  I have Peppers, tomatoes that are growing fine. But they all take a white
>about 3 weeks until they recover from the transplanting even with the moss
>pots.
>
>Layth
>
>
>
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