Eggplant Extravaganza!

Mitten Surveys the Eggplants' Progress

Mitten Farms features both white eggplants and purple Japanese "Ichiban" eggplants.  These have been plagued by a scourge that I only recently identified as white flies.  The situation is more or less under control now, thanks to some bright yellow traps and "organic" neem oil insecticide.  Fortunately, the flies did not effect the produce.  

 The eggplants started out with pretty purple flowers.  The flowers kept falling off, however, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  My gardening book advised that I should use a paint brush and pollinate the flowers myself.  This idea made sense -- Mitten Farms is on the sixteenth floor of a high rise condominium, after all. Not many bees here!

Eggplant Flower

After I figured out how to pollinate the flowers, baby eggplants started to grow! Overall, the white plant has produced many more eggplants than the purple plant.  The second purple plant is more successful and so far has yielded two eggplants.  We recently harvested the first round of eggplants and made a delicious eggplant parmesan with our bounty.  The eggplants were small but tender, and yielded a fairly large meal for the two of us.  More details to follow on the second round of eggplants!