Grow Your Own Magazine

Hello. I'm a slightly experienced gardener, but this year I'm growing in a new house and garden. Amazingly this house came with a huge veg patch, a polytunnel and a huge conservatory with nice deep windowsills. I've been sowing seeds for all I'm worth (I find those 18-egg cardboard boxes with rigid plastic lids make ideal unofficial propagators), including aubergines (Black Beauty). They've germinated well (if slowly), but I've noticed some of the seedlings at 2-leaf stage are seeming to shrivel from the tips inwards, shrivelling right down to a tiny thin line of brown leaf. I know aubs like heat, but I wondered if they maybe needed a wee bit of shade? Our conservatory faces south and has no blinds or shading whatsoever so gets ridiculously hot on a sunny day.

Any opinions gratefully received!

Does sound like it's getting a bit hot for them, shading would definitely help. What sort of temperatures does it get up to in the day in your conservatory?

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Hello MrsHD. Welcome to the Vine and congratulations on finding such a great place for growing. I think you're right about the problems with your aubergines - they're frying. Your conservatory will be fiercely hot and young plants will scorch. Maybe you could move them to a cooler place during the hottest part of the day. Also when your aubergines and peppers start to flower be sure to move them out of direct sun or the flowers will just scorch. Good luck. I'm sure you'll soon work out how that fabulous set up is going to work for you.

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I believe aubergines like it warm but moist - I did best with mine last year under the staging in the greenhouse where they got all the warmth but no direct sun and I was able to damp down each day and keep the humidity up at that end. They don't really like to bake.

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If you let them dry out the it also causes the symptoms you say ie shriveling from the tips of the leaves.
Make sure they dont dry out keep them moist (not waterlogged) and they should recover ok if you are worried they are getting too hot tape a sheet of bubble wrap to the window to dissipate the sunlight also they dont need to be under cover now they are growing a cover is only needed during germination.

Cheers Chris