Thankfully, summer temperatures here in Sydney have returned to something approaching the norm following the record-setting 45°C scorcher a few weeks earlier. A few plants carked it in the days after the super-hot day, notably the cherry tomatoes, but some other plants have put on the most incredible burst of growth since then, powered by a good dose of several days of summer-style showers-and-sunshine combos. My eggplants in particular seem to have taken that heatwave day as the signal to get growing.
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| Here's the happy little person this morning, one of three I have growing here, and all of them are putting out lots of lush new foliage. |
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| This is how the foliage looked on the day after the 45° scorcher. All of the leaves which curled and burnt after the super-hot day have fallen from the plant, provoking the new growth spurt. |
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| Flowers are popping out everywhere. Aren't family resemblances one of Nature's delights? Just one glance at this flower says eggplants and potatoes are Solanum clan cousins. |
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| Baby fruits are everywhere too. This purple and white-striped variety is 'Listada di Granada' grown from seeds bought from Digger's. |
Jealous! I've had LOADS of blossoms on my eggplant but nothing has turned into fruit. What do you think I'm doing wrong - I'm growing in pots.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you're doing anything wrong, Miss Piggy. I have had that problem with eggplants and cucumbers and other flowering crops and a few times they've come good by themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe other answer is that the problem might be a lack of bees to do the pollinating for you, so I suggest you become an honorary bee, get out a small artist's paintbrush, waggle it into each flower in turn, to transfer pollen from flower to flower. That's worked a treat for me previously, so I hope it works for you!
Glad to see some of your plants are thriving during this interesting weather we are having.
ReplyDeleteYour eggplant post ties in nicely with a book I'm currently reading called, 'How Carrots Won the Trojan War (Curious but true stories of common vegetables)' I had just finished the chapter on Eggplants, which at some stage in history were known as Mad Apples and had a reputation for being dangerous.
It's a fascinating book about the domestic origins of our most well know vegetables and quite funny to read how societies received them.
Your comments about the heat make sense to me - my husband is from Syria, and we eat cooked eggplant (and cooked okra) all summer long..... and summer in his part of Syria is hot and dry for at least 4 months....
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