My lovely Black Beauty eggs plants (26 of them) not fully grown yet are all turning orange on the out- side and don't look nice at all. Is it the heat? Any ideas. I never dreamed I could come up with so many questions until I started arid gardening in Phoenix!:)
You need to be a member of AZ Herb Forum to add comments!
Replies
I'm guessing a combination of sunburn and age - the fact they are "not fully grown yet" makes me think sunburn. But, I wonder if they simply got to the size they were going to get to. Egg plant should be picked while it is glossy, no matter what size they are (I don't mean tiny but any size over several inches). Hope that makes sense. Can you post a picture, Robert?
I think you are probably right.... sun and heat. There are still (4) Eggplants under leaves that are only the size of a tennis ball that are still black. Those that turned orange are maybe twice that size. I picked three of those and cut a slice off the end of each. The flesh in the eggplants looks good and is about the hardness of a dense nut meat.
We will see how they cook up this eveving. I'm still waiting on my camera to arrive UPS. I left it in my daughters' car in San Francisco.
If the flesh inside looked okay, see what you think after tasting them. Depending on a lot of factors, a reported "huge" fruit may not get that big. My white eggplant a couple of years ago gave me some huge and some small. As long as I picked them when they were glossy they always tasted good.