Grow Your Own Magazine

got the camera back off the OH....

a few pictures of the different type of aubs we're growing.

damn! hiccup from the site

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

- black beauty
- applegreen
- ichiban
- thai long green, not what I thought they'd look like

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

They look great, for some reason the flowers on mine just fall off rather than set, not sure what I am doing wrong.

On mine some flowers set some fall off. All those plants are in a greenhouse.

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Looking very good! Mine too. They're outside but have really flourished in this weather this year. There's easily 8 fruit on one plant and about 6 so far on the other.
Considering they're having to share a growbag with two pepper plants they're al doing really well.

I guess the flowers may have fallen off as it the atmosphere was too hot & dry in the greenhouse.

If you keep the floors damped down it will help (also keep Red Spider Mite down too )

__________________
ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

I can't get my aubergine to set fruit. They flower but nothing happens. The tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are doing great but no aubs. Still hoping.
Thanks for the pics SBP.

Ours have started to show fruit this morning, how exciting! We have been told to stake them, ensure we have no more than 4 fruit per plant and feed with tomato plant food weekly.Any other tips would be appreciated or favourite recipes for them as it is our first time growing aubergines this year.
Limbury Lad

Hi SBP, they look great, what are type are the little round ones & the skinny green ones? I've been trying to grow the black ones outdoors as I have no greenhouse but have just got leaves & nothing else (expecting too much as usual!)

__________________
Into every life a little rain must fall.

Yeah sorry Sue - the name appears if your pointer hovers over the thumbnail, but I've edited it too (should have done it before but too lazy!).

We've tried to grow them outdoors but it was a waste of time really. The applegreen we've grown before and they're relatively early to fruit and keep going, as well as being a smaller size. (The ichiban are early too - 65/70 days, oddly the BB are meant to be about 80 days but have been fruiting like 'crazy' already! I think they're a ringer! )

There's also a ping tung long in a pot (in the g.house) that there wasn't room for but couldn't bring myself to throw away. The ones in the pots are behind the BB/ichiban/thai in the beds. The BB is the smallest plant with the least 'greenery' but has already produced 4/5 fruit!

They need really hot temps, but I believe the applegreen/ichiban might be slightly more cool tolerant?

Have not eaten the thai yet but all the others taste GREAT!!!

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Thanks SBP, might give the Ichiban a try next time as they are early & look pretty much like the Black Beauty ones.

__________________
Into every life a little rain must fall.

Hi Linbury lad, will post recipe in the food thread.

I have found that if I tickle each flower with a feather while it is still quite new, that alot of them fertilise and produce fruit. Also I have sprayed with a seaweed mixture and that seems to help set the fruit too. I'm growing Slim Jim and they are fruiting really well: I'll take some snaps and post them.

I think the plants have Red Spider Mite (despite damping down every day) and so I've sprinkled on some predator thingys today. Either that or I have simply sprinkled on vermiculite: they come packaged in it, and they are too small to see. One has to trust!

__________________
Saoirse: Irish meaning Freedom (I think!)

Help - something has been munching on my aubs! There's a round deep hole (maybe .5cm diameter and 1.5cm deep) in the bottom of one. Is it a slughole???


look forward to seeing your 'slim jim' piccies saoirse, I wondered about trying them.

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

same here, chillies are sprouting all over the place, but the aubs just flower and that's it - any hints?

I have similar problems with my aubergines. Only one of my plants has fruit growing on it. It's growing on the main stem and it's huge, it looks more like a brown/purple pumpkin than an aubergine. I'm not convinced it will ever be edible when it (eventually) ripens. I read in GYO that your supposed to prevent aubergines growing on the stem, is that because you get one huge fruit rather than several on the side shoots? It's probably too late this year but I'll know for next year...

Have been trying off and on for two or three years to grow aubergines, several different types but the only ones I've managed to get to fruit were bambino (I think) which produced about half a dozen mini fruits before autumn closed in. Can't remember what type I have this year, the plants seem healthy enough and the 2 in the greenhouse have had a few flowers (which I've done the paintbrush fertilisation trick on) but no sign of any fruit and the one in a pot in the garden isn't even that advanced - mind you it was just a spare plant I couldn't bear to throw away (it's like murdering your children!). The greenhouse is unheated at this time of year, am I just keeping them too cold or perhaps picking the wrong varieties for the north Cheshire climate?

Now that this year is getting on a bit I'm getting excited at the thought of next year's harvest (wishing my life away!). Had a bad year with aubergenes (nice growth, fair few flowers but no sign of fruit) so thought I'd go for different varieties next year. Like the idea of the Ichiban and Applegreen but can't find any seeds for the Applegreen ones. Can you remember where you got your seeds from Smallblueplanet? Always keen to try some of the less common types.

Thanks.

As Before SBP, great aubs. As before here, absolutely no success. The plants did set fruit (very small) then just withered and died. It's been a great summer here so don't think we can blame the weather. Will give it another go next year (ever the optimist). Again, congrats and well done on the aubs. If you can think of anything that makes the difference, do share it with us.

with a tiny plastic 'greenhouse' and only room for a couple of pots I'm growing 'Mini Finger' and they've been excellent, small but I've harvested about two fruits a week for the last month or so and still they come.

Will try and grow some bigger but not too big ones next year. Black Beauty and Moneymaker seem very common. I saw a nice, not too large, purple/white stripey one in a catalogue.

Thanks for that Jazzduke. Have made a note of the variety and will give it a go along with anything else anybody wants to recommend. I just have to master this. Why will the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers do fine, but no aubs. GRRRRRRRR!!!!

I had no problem with germination except the very first fruit on each plant never really came to much but other than that I was most impressed as a novice at first attempt. Also the way they came along nicely spaced out is a bonus.

Alison, can't really understand why you've had no aub success - only can say what we did...

When we were in Derbyshire we tried growing them in a lean-to conservatory in 10/12" pots, got reasonable plants and flowers but almost no fruit - might have had an applegreen or two.

Here in Wiltshire we have our first greenhouse, we planted direct into the border (about end of May, germinated well before and/or cheated with a garden centre grown one). We also planted some in pots in the greenhouse this year.

The plants in the greenhouse were really quite good at flowering and fruiting - the 1st year we bought a plant from the GC, a variety called 'Blackbell f1' (a variety used by market gardeners) and it gave a good yield of purple egg-shaped fruits off one plant. Couldn't find any seeds for it though.

So next we tried 'Diamond' & Applegreen - not a very good yield from Diamond, but Applegreen is good at being relatively early with lots of small green fruit carrying on quite late/cold.

This year we grew Ichiban, thai long green & black beauty in the greenhouse border and ping tung long and applegreen in pots. The Ichiban are great 3 or 4 fruits growing at a time, good taste. The thai long green have multiple clusters of fruit with a milder taste. The black beauty plant (from the garden centre for an early start) gave about 6 or 7 fruits early on, but has nearly stopped now. The ping tung long has grown 2/3 fruits and the applegreen was starting to do really well but we lost it to wet/mould, I think the pot drainage was poor!

Aubs need really hot weather at least 21c to be growing fruit. We keep the green house door shut if the temp drops but most of the days in summer its open to allow pollination (and the top vent is always open).

Its difficult to say why you've got plants/flowers and no fruit - we've had similar situations and all that is different between then (Derbyshire) and now is temperature and being grown in the ground, they can be quite big plants.

I got our applegreen seeds from 'Dave's Seeds' (in the USA - very helpful & friendly) off ebay.co.uk - search on ebay (or even google) for eggplants!

Dave's Seeds

only $1.39 p&p for however many pkts.

Not listing applegreen atm - try emailing him, as its a bit early maybe.

I also got the Ichiban, ping tung long and thai long green from there. Also the Cubanelle pepper seeds which gave huge numbers of 'mediterranean-type' green peppers and Matina tomato seeds - some of the tastiest toms I've eaten, also early to fruit & lots of them.

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."