Eggplants direct sown on 20.5 under plastic and cloth. They had emerged already well before end of last month, but didn’t get around taking plastic off. A little culling to be done still. Right now they only have cloth on which should do some selection and make culling easier.
As a comparison I sowed small patch of eggplant with peppers to see if I could do without plastic. Would be much easier and it also would free up plastics for other projects. They emerged about the same time as peppers or little less than a week later than the ones under plastic. That’s also, if not in worst case weather, still not a helping weather. Last year first one flowered on 18.7 and if these are a week later they still have fairly good change of making viable seeds. Still it’s cutting it close. This year plan was anyway to mix genes more so that I have maximum diverse blend once I start pushing the envelope, whenever that might be. Intersting to see if the difference holds or are the ones that were sown without plastic more “primed” for the cold.
Finally had the time to clean eggplant beds from tomatillos and weeds that had taken over and do some culling. Some had apparently been burned while plastic was still on, but no significant damage from that. Next time know to be more careful. Cloth is now on supports so that it doesn’t crush small seedlings. I’ll give them another week or so before making a little harder culling.
Before and after first hard culling. Some holes I left more, but some I already went down to one if one was way ahead of the others. Still a lot to cull. Plan is to cull every week or so until flowering when I’ll make final selection based on how early they flower or general growth depending if they still look to flower before it’s too late. I couldn’t find pictures from this stage from last year, but I assume they are fairly similar to last year. The cooler weather might slow their growth, but like with peppers last year I took off the cloth late june so there is still chance to catch up a little. There should still be warm enough under the cloth for good growth if it’s at least partially sunny. They are right at the stage when the growth starts to look significant even over short periods.
Went little too much time since I last time weeded and culled eggplants. By the time I checked from pictures when I had done it the last time, rains had flooded paths and winds made it a bit hard to deal with cloths. Yesterday was second hot (over 25C/76F) day of the year and the best change to do weeding/culling. Still a bit wet, but it was already 2 weeks from the last time and more rain plus heavy winds in the forecast. Growth had been quite significant considering the lack of heat. Unfortunately it looks like it might not be enough. They are a little too much behind from last year that it makes it a lot more uncertain that they will make viable seeds. It’s not unexpected with this weather, but might be partially from the fact that I probably had the plastic on longer last year. If nothing else, this year works as a good baseline of how viable getting seeds this way is. I still have the option to add plastic tunnel late in the august to extend season if needed. From experience that isn’t so easy as eggplants don’t like excessive moisture. We’ll cross that bridge once we get there. First have to wait and see when these flower. Long term forecasts look like there might be change of the weather type in the middle of this month and possible hotter weather. Fingers crossed.
It warmed up, but thunderstorms brought some more rain yeasterday night and morning. Even today I have been following the radar to see if the rains hit here and it seems like they mainly missed. Good weather for eggplants temperature wise. Yesterday 29C/84F and today 30C/86F. The ground is wet, but doesn’t seem excessively saturated so should be good conditions for growth. Took the cloth of to make some weeding and culling. It also seems like there are some aphids so good to keep the cloth off now that I can so that nature can take it’s course, hopefully.
Now most of the paths are dry(ish) and plants are starting to size up to dry it even futher. Some of the plants have had buds for some time now. It seems like some of the better plants are those that grow size first before flowering whereas some smaller, whether it’s stress related or genes (plenty reason for both cases), start flowering early. Normally they would get some points for heavy early growth before flowering if flowering is still early enough, but this year probably will be too late (unless I make some last ditch effort to take them indoors at the end of season). This year I’m happy to get any seeds and those that are late can probably make at least one eating size fruit. When there are several dozen plants, it’s still fairly heavy concolidation price. It does look like the biggest buds are big enough that they will open by the end of this month, just in time to give fairly good chance to ripen seeds. We’ll have to wait and see.
Three of the bigger plants with barely visible flower bud starts.
First flower opened yesterday and today 4 more plants opened the first flower. Around 10 more looks ready to open by end of this month. First plant to open flower wasn’t the strongest looking and it might have hurried up flowering at the expense of growth. This year I can’t make that hard selection and all seeds that I can get are welcome. They can prove themselves again next year. Some of the better looking plants also opened flowers so there will be hard competition for them. I went through the flowers from flower to flower trying to pollinate each one with all others plus some of the ones I had from transplants. If I just get seeds it will be a really diverse population.
