I am growing eggplant for the first time ever, and it looks beautiful! The plant has large leaves and big purple flowers, and the fruit looks like deep purple marbles before it really takes shape. I know that often times the food I grow in my own garden doesn't look exactly like what we're used to seeing in a grocery store-- the food I grow has imperfect shapes and coloring and minor bruises, but I expect that because I'm not using standardized growing systems and chemical treatments. So herein lies my problem: if I don't know what it's supposed to look like, how do I know when my eggplant is ready to pick?
If I wait for it to look like a long, smooth, perfectly plump purple droplet, I might lose my chance to pick a ripe eggplant. But having never grown this vegetable before, I have nothing to compare it to other than past eggplants I've purchased. Here's what my eggplant plant looks like right now, with one especially large ripening fruit:
I'm pretty sure those tiny little eggplant dudes aren't ready yet, but what about that big guy? He seems to be growing out and wide instead of down and long. Is this a trait of the eggplant breed I planted? Is this normal for home-grown eggplants? Will it start to lengthen out soon and end up looking normal?
I am not ashamed to admit that I get much of my gardening information from simply searching on the internet. We all know (I hope!) to double check any information we get from the internet, so my rule is that I have to find the same piece of information from at least 3 different sources before I can believe it. I often find that the small blogs and chatrooms have more detailed discussions than the formal gardening magazines and university sites. Power to the people!
So here's what I've found out about harvesting eggplant thanks to this great World Wide Web Internet site called www.Google.com:
1. Eggplants come in many varieties:
2. Eggplant has different names all over the world. It is also known as aubergine, melongene, brinjal, and guinea squash. The English word eggplant comes from the first variety to reach Europe, which were small and white and look like an egg growing on the plant (pictured above).
3. Technically eggplant is a fruit, not a vegetable, but in the culinary world it is treated like a veggie.
4. And here's what I was really looking for: I should pick my eggplants when they are a little larger than my hand, and the skin has a nice shine to it. It's best to pick the fruits when they are immature because the flavor is better and it stimulates the plant to continue producing. So it looks like my oddly-shaped large eggplant is ready to go, and it won't be so bad if I accidentally pick my eggplants too early because the immature fruit tastes great. Thanks Google!
Oh, and here's some info Google gave me that I was unable to verify: a rare breed of eggplant.