Nax's Eggplant x 2
Solanum melongena

One baby fist sized; one maybe a five-year-old’s. Something took a bite out of the larger one. Curses! The entire garden yielded the eggplants, 19 cherry tomatoes (4 ripe), 3 tiny romas, 12 carrots, 8 cups curly parsley, (didn’t harvest the Italian), 2 tiny bell peppers, half of cup of fennel seeds (still plenty left on the plant), a handful of raspberries with about a cup of unripe fruit on the canes, 8 phlox seeds, and three Early (Late!) Girls to be bag-ripened. Pretty good for October 16.

I gave up on the second plant. There was fruit setting, but just too slowly. This one, about a week ago I pinched back all flowers/buds that hadn’t set fruit yet so that it could focus on the three that were going strong. Lost one— it split, so I pulled it off. The two left are looking good; I wish I had another week, but it’s looking like low 40s or even 30s overnight by late next week, so I’ll play a little weather roulette with these and see how big they get.

Temps getting into the low 40s overnight this week, but I’ve got 6 (!) 2" long eggies going. I’d like to be able to leave them on the plants until they are at least the size of a large fist (then I can call them “baby” eggplants and sell them for mondo bucks, amirite?) so I’m draping them overnight with cotton gauze.

These looked done, but now I’m really glad I didn’t pull them, cuz lookit that!

Thought this guy was done, but I have two good-looking flowers and 5 buds. If the weather gets warm again I might get more fruit. Also spotted a lovely Daddy-Longlegs on here this morning (more in the “spiders” journal).