What to Plant in September - Eggplant

Okay, I know... I have no track record when it comes to eggplant. Scratch that, I have a terrible track record when it comes to eggplant. But last night while I was thinking about what to feature as the plant to plant in September, it came to me that if my eggplant plant wouldn't do what it's supposed to do, I would just grow some new ones who would. Take that recalcitrant eggplant. I am nothing if not stubborn.

But then today when I was wondering what on earth I could photograph for you in the way of the eggplant related, and I looked at the eggplant plant and lo and behold, the eggplant plant has eggplanted! And if I am not mistaken, this eggplant is just slightly larger than last month's effort.

Perhaps I'm not the only one who's stubborn.

So the emergence of the eggplant today has enthused me even more about growing eggplants, and yesterday we made our cool propagation pots, so I thought that eggplant seeds would be the perfect choice for their debut.

So planting out the eggplant seeds wasn't rocket science. The boys and I filled up the newspaper pots with soil from the chicken coop, poked holes in for the seeds and watered the lot. I'm keeping the seed pots in a sunny position, and I'll just keep an eye on them there, making sure they don't dry out. Wetting down the newspaper when watering will help with this.

Because my eggplant plant produces those super dark black/purple fruit, and because it doesn't do a whole lot of actual producing, this time I went for those excellent bright purple and white stripey eggplants. I got them from Digger's, they are called Listada di Gandia, and are an heirloom variety.

And to show you how confident I am of these eggplants working, I won't link you to a photo of the stripey eggplants, I'll promise a photo of one of my own will be posted this summer.

That will make the eggplant plant especially jealous.