8 Eggplant Growing Mistakes to Avoid (and Solutions)

by Jennifer Poindexter

Have you ever noticed there are some plants you see in almost every garden? It’s normal to see tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, squash, and cucumbers. One plant which is becoming a new staple in the garden is eggplant.

If you’re considering adding it to your garden, you’re in the right place. I’m going to share some of the main mistakes gardeners make when growing this vegetable.

I’ll be sharing their solutions as well. Hopefully, this will help you have a smoother time raising this vegetable. These are the top missteps gardeners make with eggplant.

1. Planting Under the Wrong Growing Conditions

You must understand what plants need, in a grow space, prior to planting them. Eggplant has specific growing conditions which must be met for the plant to thrive.

If you skip the foundation of this plant, you shouldn’t expect positive results. Take the time to learn what eggplant needs from you.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

When growing eggplant, you must provide a few basics. The first necessity is picking a spot with adequate sunlight. Eggplant prefers to grow in full sun. 

You must also pay attention to the type of soil you’re planting in. It should be aerated and well-draining.

This allows for water to reach the roots of the plants but drain away quickly. It ensures the eggplant isn’t left in a consistently soggy state. These are the important elements eggplant must find in its growing area.

2. Planting When It’s Too Cold

Once you have the growing elements right, you must ensure the temperatures are accurate. If you plant eggplant when it’s too cold, you could run into a few problems.

Temperatures, which are too cold, could stunt your eggplants. If there’s a sudden swing in the temperatures, the blossoms of your eggplant could fall. Ensure you understand when you should plant this vegetable.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

You can avoid this mistake by ensuring you don’t plant until the threat of frost is over. Most gardeners wait two weeks, or more, after the final expected frost date.

This ensures the temperatures have warmed up and should help avoid big swings in the temperature. Eggplant thrives in temperatures which hang around 60-degrees Fahrenheit and higher.

When you dip below 60-degrees, you run the risk of losing the blooms of the plant. If a sudden swing in temperature hits, move your plants indoors or cover them with milk jugs to create a miniature greenhouse for protection.

Take these things into consideration when deciding the right time to plant eggplant in your garden.

3. Using an Imbalanced Fertilizer

Eggplants should be fertilized. They enjoy a fresh dose of nutrients approximately one time per month. If the plants don’t have necessary nutrients, it can be difficult for them to thrive.

Therefore, ensure that fertilizing is a part of your normal care routine. When fertilizing, use a balanced option to avoid major issues.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

You can avoid this mistake by ensuring you use a balanced fertilizer. When you apply too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorus, your eggplants will suffer.

The bad part is you probably won’t realize it until the problem has already formed. When a plant receives an imbalanced amount of phosphorus and nitrogen, you’ll have lush foliage.

However, the plant won’t fruit because there isn’t enough phosphorus. Ensure you have plenty of fruit on your eggplant by using the right type of fertilizer when caring for them.

4. Not Supplying Eggplant with Calcium

Plants need nutrients just as humans do. If you don’t supply the right nutrients, your plants could suffer.

Avoid this issue by supplying everything your eggplants need. One important nutrient, for eggplant, is calcium. Don’t skip adding this to your growing area.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

Add calcium to your eggplants at the time of planting. I like to sprinkle powdered milk around the base of my plants to ensure they receive the nutrients necessary.

If you don’t supply enough calcium to your plants, they could develop blossom end rot. This is when the bottoms of the fruits are soft and rotten.

This happens due to a lack of calcium. Therefore, protect the fruits of your labor by adding a little powdered milk to your planting area.

5. Not Protecting the Eggplant from the Elements

As plants mature, there are many threats gardeners must be aware of. With eggplants, they should be staked and protected from strong winds.

Without this protection, it could break the stem of the plant. This will ultimately kill your plant, so as you can see, protecting your eggplants is crucial to their survival.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

When your eggplants start reaching a mature state, you must provide stability to keep the plant from breaking.

You can place a tomato cage around the eggplant, or you can place a wooden stake behind the plant, and tie it to the stake.

This should protect it from strong winds, heavy rains, and provide some relief from the weight of the fruit the plant produces.

6. Skipping the Mulch

If you were to ask me the thing I hate most about gardening, my answer would probably be mulch. I love how it looks after I’m done, and I appreciate all it does for my plants and soil.

However, distributing the mulch can be back breaking work. This is especially true if you have a larger growing area. Though you may not love the act of spreading mulch, don’t skip it when growing eggplants.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

You can avoid this mistake by applying mulch to your eggplants. Mulch will help improve the quality of your soil, over time, and it also helps retain moisture around the plant.

Eggplants need the soil they grow in to have consistent moisture. You can deep water your plants which means you water them for a longer period of time but for fewer days of the week.

Add mulch to hold the moisture in place even longer. This should keep your plants healthier and the moisture levels accurate.

7. Ignoring Pests and Diseases

Unfortunately, eggplants have many enemies in the garden. You must pay close attention to signs of pests and diseases.

Make the time to take walks through your garden to check your plants. If you don’t, disease and pests can ravage your hard work in a small amount of time.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

Some of the most common pests to attack eggplant are cutworms, leafhoppers, aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, and flea beetles. Most of these pests can be treated with an insecticide.

The diseases which commonly impact eggplant are wilt and mosaic virus. If your eggplants have a fungal disease, treat it with a fungicide.

You should also pull the mulch back from the plant, reduce the amount of water being provided, and increase airflow around the plant by pruning or weeding.

There is no cure for mosaic virus. The plant must be destroyed, and it shouldn’t be composted. This will stop the spread of the virus to other plants.

If mosaic virus tends to be an ongoing problem, you should consider gardening in raised beds or containers using fresh soil that’s solarized prior to use.

8. Harvesting at the Wrong Time

It’s terrible to put in a lot of hard work, only to have it wasted at harvest time. If you don’t harvest eggplant at the appropriate time, this can happen.

Therefore, understand the proper way to harvest eggplant. You must also understand the proper time for harvesting this crop, too.

How to Avoid this Mistake:

You can avoid this mistake by waiting until the fruit of the plant has reached an appropriate size. Don’t wait until the fruit has fully matured.

Instead, harvest when it’s approximately half the size of its mature state. This will give you a better shot at having tender eggplant.

When you press the skin, and it feels springy, the fruit is ready to be picked. Use a sharp pair of scissors or shears to cut the stem of the eggplant away from the plant itself.

These are the top mistakes gardeners make when raising eggplant in their gardens. Most of them are minor details which could have a large impact on the size harvest you receive.

Plus, these small things could make all the difference in your growing experience. Take the necessary steps to make growing eggplant enjoyable by utilizing these tips.

Eggplant Growing Reference Chart

Category	Eggplant
Plant Type	Annual
Plant Family	Solanaceae (Nightshade family)
Native To	India and Southeast Asia
Scientific Name	Solanum melongena
Common Name	Eggplant, Aubergine, Brinjal, Guinea Squash
USDA Hardiness Zone	Grown as an annual in most climates; best in USDA zones 4-11
Germination Time	7-14 days
Days to Maturity	65-90 days, depending on the variety
Sun Requirements	Full sun (6-8 hours per day)
Planting Requirements	Transplant seedlings outdoors after last frost. Use black plastic mulch to warm soil.
Planting Spacing	24-36 inches (60-90 cm) apart
Plant Height and Width	24-48 inches (60-120 cm) tall, 24-36 inches (60-90 cm) wide
Growth Habit	Bushy, spreading
Water Requirements	Moderate; keep soil consistently moist
Growing Difficulty	Moderate
Common Pests	Leafminers, flea beetles, aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, tomato pinworm, stinkbugs
Common Diseases	Verticillium wilt, Fusarium wilt, early blight, powdery mildew, blossom end rot, ercospora leaf spot
Soil Requirements	Well-drained, loamy soil
Soil pH	6.0-6.8
Soil Draining	Well-draining
Fertilizer Requirements	Balanced, slow-release fertilizer at planting; side-dress with nitrogen after fruiting begins
Pruning and Training	Stake or cage plants; prune lower leaves and any non-fruiting branches
Companion Plants	Beans, peas, lettuce, radishes, marigolds, nasturtiums, tarragon, peppers, thyme, lavender, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, sage, catnip, sunflowers, borage, potatoes, mint, Swiss chard, tomatoes, cabbage, spinach, snapdragons, kohlrabi,
Popular Cultivar Varieties	‘Black Beauty’, ‘Ichiban’, ‘Rosa Bianca’, ‘Hansel’, ‘Gretel’
Attracts Pollinators	bees
Planting Calendar	Start seeds indoors 8-10 weeks before the last frost; transplant outdoors after last frost
Cool Season or Warm Season Crop	Warm season crop
Harvesting and Storage	Harvest when skin is glossy and firm; store at 50°F (10°C), avoid refrigeration

More About Growing Eggplant

https://extension.umn.edu/vegetables/growing-eggplant

http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene26b5.html

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/veggies/eggplant.cfm