Last edited on 24 Aug 2025. View history
Long Purple Eggplant
A variety of eggplant
How to sow long purple eggplant: Sow seeds indoors and transplant out, or plant nursery seedlings
Sun requirement for long purple eggplant: Plant in Full Sun
Eggplants commonly are egg-shaped with glossy black skin, but can come in a variety of other shapes and colors. They can be white, yellow, and pale to deep purple. Some are as small as goose eggs. The 'Rosa Bianca' cultivar is squat and round, while Asian cultivars can be long and thin. Eggplant stems are often spiny and their flowers range from white to purple.
Their flesh is generally white with a meaty texture and small seeds in the center. They are delicious grilled, roasted, in soups and stews, and breaded and fried.
- 2
- plantings
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- harvests
- 1
- seed packet
Long purple eggplant facts
Lifespan
Days until maturity
84–112 days median of members' seed packetsCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For long purple eggplant, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 9°C and a shortest growing cycle of 70 days at its best temperature, about 1295 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your long purple eggplant will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Growing long purple eggplants
- Sow seeds indoors 8 weeks before planting out
- Harden off the seedlings 1 week before planting out
- Stake the plants 3 weeks after planting out
- Water deeply at planting out every week
- Mulch around the plants 2 weeks after planting out
- Feed with liquid fertiliser 6 weeks after planting out every month
- Pick fruit regularly at first harvest every week
- Pull out finished plants 6 weeks after first harvest
How members grow long purple eggplants
Sunniness
Planted from
Plant long purple eggplants with
bell pepper
potato
serrano pepper
wax bean
african marigold
Video
Where long purple eggplants grow
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
What people are saying about long purple eggplants
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Who's planted long purple eggplants
- CloCkWeRX 02 - Rosewater Backyard Left · Rosewater, South...
- maco backyard beds · Wheaton-Glenmont, MD
Long purple eggplant harvests
Nobody has harvested this crop yet.
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Solanum melongena L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Asteridae Solanales Solanaceae |
|---|---|
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, organic |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
Learn more about long purple eggplants
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