by If you are not afraid of difficulties and want to try your hand at growing vegetables that are not traditional for the middle zone, try growing eggplants. To make it easier for you, we want to reveal a few secrets.
Our advice is related to growing eggplants in a greenhouse, because it is extremely difficult to grow eggplants in open ground in the middle zone. In addition, in our climate conditions, these vegetables are grown only by seedlings:
1. Proper watering of eggplants
When growing eggplants, one of the main conditions for success is proper watering.
Eggplant is a moisture-loving crop. The soil under the plant should always be moist, but without stagnant water. The best soil moisture is 80%. To achieve this, eggplants need to be watered at least 1-2 times a week, and even more often when hot days come – every other day. Drought can lead to leaf and flower fall, slow growth and formation of ovaries. Eggplants need the greatest moisture during the flowering and fruiting period.
Watering is best done in the morning, before the heat of the day sets in. To prevent the plant, which is in warm greenhouse soil, from experiencing stress during watering, the water should be warm – 20-25°C.
Eggplants need to be watered at the root, avoiding contact with the leaves. The amount of water should be such as to wet the soil by 20-40 cm – this is the depth at which the main part of the plant roots is located. Eggplants love water, but at the same time they react negatively to high air humidity. This is one of the biggest problems when growing these vegetables in a greenhouse. With high humidity (optimal – 65-75%), the likelihood of eggplants getting fungal infections increases. To prevent diseases, the greenhouse must be regularly ventilated, especially after watering, and the plantings must not be too thick.
When ventilating the greenhouse, avoid the formation of drafts. To do this, open the vents and the door on one side only.
2. Temperature regime
When caring for eggplants, it is important to monitor not only watering, but also the temperature regime. This vegetable loves heat, so it is very important to create optimal conditions for it.
The best daytime temperature for growing eggplants is 24-28°C, and the best nighttime temperature is not lower than 12-15°C. Fluctuations in either direction have a negative effect on the plant.
If the night temperature drops below 12°C, the growth of bushes and fruits, as well as the setting of fruits, slows down. If the daytime temperature exceeds 30°C, pollination and plant growth stops altogether.
Sudden temperature fluctuations are also harmful to eggplants – they can cause the plant to begin to shed flowers and ovaries.
If ventilation alone is not enough to lower the temperature in the greenhouse, you can try other methods.
- Cover the outside of the greenhouse with any white opaque material or paint it with slaked lime. The white color will reflect the sun’s rays and protect the greenhouse from overheating.
- Water the paths in the greenhouse from time to time with cold water from a hose.
To increase the temperature, place hot stones or bricks in the greenhouse. You can use plastic bottles filled with hot water instead. Another way is to fill buckets with hot ash and leave them in the greenhouse overnight.
3. Loosening and hilling
After watering, a crust forms on the soil surface, which prevents air from reaching the roots. Lack of oxygen leads to delayed growth of the roots and, as a consequence, the entire plant. For this reason, one of the mandatory procedures when growing eggplants is regular (ideally, after each watering) loosening.
The soil should be loosened to a depth of no more than 4-5 cm, so as not to touch the roots. This is important, because the root system of eggplants does not recover and additional roots, like, for example, on tomato stems, do not appear.
At the same time as loosening, you need to carry out hilling – adding soil to the trunk of the plant.
4. Forming eggplants
If you grow low-growing eggplants, you don’t need to shape them – just inspect them regularly and remove dried leaves and damaged fruits. Early ripening eggplants don’t need to be shaped either. But when growing tall varieties, you can’t do without this procedure.
You can form a bush into one stem, two or more: the further south your region is, the more shoots and fruits the plants can “feed”.
When forming a bush into one stem, remove all unnecessary shoots: both lateral ones growing from the leaf axils and those that come from the ground.
If you are forming a plant with two stems, pinch the top at a distance of about 30 cm from the ground. After the beginning of branching on the side stems, leave 3-4 pairs of buds, and remove the rest.
In addition to shaping, one should not forget about removing leaves that thicken the trunk and interfere with ventilation. In conditions of increased importance, this can lead to fungal diseases. One should not leave shoots without ovaries, lower and diseased leaves on the bushes either.
5. Fertilizing eggplants
The first top dressing eggplant seedlings are carried out approximately two weeks after planting. It is important that the plants have time to take root. In this case, any complex fertilizer is used (for example, Kemiru-Lux or Rastvorin).
During the appearance of buds Eggplants are fed with phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. To do this, dissolve 1 tbsp. of potassium sulfate in 10 liters of water, water the plants with the resulting liquid, then loosen the soil slightly and add superphosphate granules – 0,5 tsp. under each bush.
When the first fruits appear, plants are fed with an infusion of weeds or a complex of azofoska (1 tbsp. per 10 l of water) and fertilizers with microelements, for example Uniflor Micro (2 tsp. per 10 l of water). Also, during flowering and fruiting, you can use solutions of mullein, bird droppings, wood ash.
3-4 weeks before harvest It is recommended to pour 1 glass of nutrient solution under each eggplant bush, which is prepared from 1 tbsp. superphosphate, 1 tbsp. potassium salt and 10 liters of water.
6. Protection from disease
The main diseases that greenhouse-grown eggplants are susceptible to are gray mold and fusarium wilt. The main causes of these diseases are high humidity and temperature fluctuations.
To avoid such problems, you need to follow the rules of agricultural technology:
- to reduce humidity levels, ventilate the greenhouse regularly;
- treat plants with fungicides (Sporobacterin, Fitosporin-M, etc.), they will strengthen the immune system and protect against a number of pathogens of fungal and bacterial infections;
- Observe crop rotation: do not plant eggplants after any plants of the Solanaceae family.
If preventive measures do not help and signs of disease appear on the plants, use such preparations for treatment as Consento, Alirin-B or Gamair – for late blight; Gamair and Gliokladin – for gray rot.
Growing eggplants is not easy, but the incredible taste of these vegetables is worth the effort. We would like to offer you several simple recipes for eggplant dishes:
