Eggplant

Sowing: Eggplant seed is started indoors about six to eight weeks before the expected transplant date, sown a quarter inch deep and kept warm, ideally 80 to 90°F, since germination is poor in cool soil and takes roughly seven to twelve days. Seedlings are hardened off gradually, then set out only once frost danger has passed and soil temperatures sit in the 60s°F, spaced 18 to 24 inches apart in rows 30 to 36 inches apart.

Siting and care: Eggplant wants full sun and a fertile, well-drained, slightly acid soil rich in organic matter, roughly pH 5.5 to 6.8, with moderate, even moisture. Raised beds or black plastic mulch help warm the soil early, while organic mulch should wait until the soil has already warmed; the plants are heavy feeders but respond poorly to high-nitrogen fertilizer, which pushes foliage at the expense of fruit, and heavily fruited plants often need staking. Growers pinch off remaining blossoms two to four weeks before the first expected frost so the plant finishes ripening existing fruit rather than starting new ones, and small-fruited or dwarf types can be grown successfully in containers.

Pests: Flea beetles, tomato hornworms, Colorado potato beetles, cutworms and aphids all attack eggplant. Row covers put in place at planting help exclude early flea beetle damage, aphids can be knocked off with a strong water spray, and Colorado potato beetles, their larvae and eggs are commonly handpicked, while cardboard collars protect transplants from cutworms.

Disease: Verticillium wilt is described as the most serious disease of eggplant. It is best avoided by planting into soil that has not grown tomatoes, peppers or strawberries, or by rotating eggplant and other nightshade-family crops through a given spot no more than once every three or four years.

Fruit generally reaches harvest around 105 to 133 days after sowing, and good production depends on at least two months of night-time temperatures near 70°F. Saved eggplant seed remains viable for up to four years when kept in storage.

Culinary: Eggplant is grown chiefly as a food crop, and its fruit and seeds are edible, though the rest of the plant is not. The fruit is not eaten raw but baked, stewed or fried, and its skin and seeds can be eaten once cooked; the flesh is nutritionally modest but absorbs oils and flavors readily, which underlies much of its use in cooking.

Ornamental: Because of its coarse, dramatic foliage and fruit that comes in purple, white, green and other colors, eggplant is also grown as an edible-landscaping plant in flower beds as well as vegetable gardens, and compact varieties are well suited to outdoor containers.

Eggplant is native to South Central China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and is grown as a perennial in South Asia even though it is treated as an annual in cooler climates. It was domesticated from a wild nightshade relative, Solanum incanum, with evidence pointing to two independent domestication events, one in South Asia and one in East Asia; large-fruited cultivars are associated with an Indian origin and smaller-fruited types with a Chinese one. The common name traces to an Italian term for the fruit meaning roughly "mad apple," reflecting its long history in Old World cuisine before spreading to cultivation worldwide.