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.
