Eggplant Growing Tips, Spacing, and Potassium Nitrate

Ptichka wrote:
girls, tell me…

I’ve given it to tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers many times. Strawberries will be happy with it too. But it’s better to apply it before they start fruiting heavily.

Nelli wrote:
Girls, do you prune your eggplants at all?
I usually pull off all the suckers up to the first Y-split, trying to shape them into a tree, and then leave three main stems. But I noticed that as soon as I stop pruning them and let them push out suckers (and they even shoot thick, strong stems from under the soil!), that’s when the fruit really takes off. Now I’m thinking maybe I should just let them grow completely wild…

Nel, I practically don’t prune them at all. I just snap off some of the really thin, useless stuff. But mine never grow into massive giants anyway.

Marina111 wrote:
Lyuda, girls, what spacing do you use when planting eggplants?

Marina, I plant them exactly the same as tomatoes, maybe just a tiny bit more spaced out. But this year I want to give everything more breathing room. I’d rather plant one less root overall. That goes for peppers and tomatoes too.

Ptichka wrote:
Good day everyone. I bought potassium nitrate (KNO3) by mistake, thinking I was buying calcium nitrate. Read up on it online and realized you can’t feed it to everything. Now I’m sitting here thinking, what the heck do I even need it for? Lyudmila and girls, tell me, is it useful? What can I apply it to?

Natasha, don’t stress, it’ll definitely come in handy. When you are doing calcium feedings (even on seedlings), you can just alternate. Instead of calcium nitrate, use the potassium nitrate for the next feeding.

Aleksan9ra wrote:
But this year I want to give everything more breathing room.

I agree when it comes to tomatoes and eggplants… but aren’t peppers actually supposed to be planted close enough that their leaves touch each other?

Nel, I don’t mean a full meter per plant, just a bit looser. Sometimes I even plant two in the same hole. And it’s not just that their leaves touch—sometimes it’s such a jungle you can’t even tell which plant is which! I even tie two plants up to a single stake sometimes.

Aleksan9ra wrote:
Marina, I plant them exactly the same as tomatoes… I’d rather plant one less root overall.

Lyuda, thanks. I had my eggplants spaced exactly like my tomatoes, but the yield was pretty small—though to be fair, the tomatoes were shading them out. This year I won’t plant them next to the tomatoes and I’ll definitely increase the spacing.

Ptichka wrote:
…What can I apply it [potassium nitrate] to?

You can give it to any flowers, fruiting or flowering shrubs, young garlic, and cabbage. I just wouldn’t give it to tomatoes, it might cause them to go overly vegetative (too much leafy growth, no fruit).

Potassium nitrate is actually a core ingredient in Astero’s famous fertilizer mix on here.

Marina111 wrote:
…but the yield was pretty small, though to be fair, the tomatoes were shading them out.

Wait, how were they shading them? Usually, eggplants grow into absolute monsters both vertically and horizontally… unless your tomatoes are giant vining indeterminates… If your eggplants were only knee-high, what kind of yield can you really expect? Three eggplants? Just my two cents…

Good afternoon! I’ve been reading your grow journals with great pleasure for two years now! Huge thanks for all the knowledge! The method you showed seems very interesting for planting out early tomatoes. I’m definitely going to try it. I’m starting about 5 determinate tomatoes for early harvest in February, I can try planting them out that way. Maybe some early cucumbers too.

Here is another interesting video about growing all sorts of different vegetables in bags. I highly recommend watching it, especially for those of you who are short on garden space.

Nelli wrote:
If your eggplants were only knee-high, what kind of yield can you really expect?

The tomatoes reached all the way to the greenhouse roof, while the eggplants were only waist-high. But honestly, I’m just not very good at growing them, which is exactly why I’m asking so many questions!

Marina, this might be helpful for your eggplants:
When transplanting into the greenhouse, eggplant seedlings should be at least 60 days old.
Only pinch off the very first flower; all the other first buds are the most valuable. But if the seedling is too young (like 55 days), they will drop their blossoms. You can’t let that happen.
Space them 40 cm (16 inches) apart. When planting, bury the stem about 2-3 cm (an inch) deeper than it was in the pot.
No need to prune or train them heavily, just snip out the small weak shoots growing inside the bush to improve airflow.
Ideal temps are +21-28°C (70-82°F) during the day, +15-17°C (59-63°F) at night, with soil temps around +20°C (68°F).
To keep spider mites away, lightly mist the plants with water regularly.
For feeding, alternate nitrogen fertilizers with complex ones, and make sure they include micronutrients. A couple of times, give the older seedlings Epsom salts (Magnesium Sulfate)—about 2-3g per 1 Liter of water (approx 1 tsp per gallon).
To boost their immune system, you can add humic acid (sodium humate) to your watering water.
During heatwaves, water very heavily. Overhead watering (sprinklers/showering) is great if you can do it towards the evening, around 4:00 PM.

Marina, I suck at growing eggplants too. I just gave up on them this year so they don’t take up precious space.

Oh, I wanted to add a note about magnesium. Eggplants need it like we need air, but their roots absorb it very poorly, which is why it should only be given as a foliar spray. Just don’t overdo it! Make sure it’s completely dissolved, mixed well, and use a very fine mist setting on your sprayer.

gala7496 wrote:
I gave up on them this year so they don’t take up precious space.

Galya, it also heavily depends on the hybrid you choose. Picking the right hybrid is half the battle. There are tons of hybrids out there, but very few that universally get praised by everyone.

Nadindina wrote:
I just wouldn’t give it [potassium nitrate] to tomatoes, it might cause them to go overly vegetative.

Actually, when tomatoes are actively plumping up fruit on their third truss, you CAN give them potassium nitrate—they won’t go vegetative at that stage.

Anyway, yesterday I sowed my eggplants—14 varieties! And 2 varieties of Jalapeños… Today I’m going to sow 4 more mild pepper varieties. My early tomatoes are already putting out their first true leaves, though for some reason Kazybalykskiy only had 1 out of 4 seeds sprout. But hey, at least Vera Ivanovna had 100% germination (8 out of 8). Uluru Ochre, Peaches and Cream, Golden Mountains of Medeo, and Ancient Heart of Acqui Terme are also growing along nicely. My cucumbers sprouted in paper towels, opened their cotyledons, and have been moved to the windowsill.

Silver and Pink Morn (petunias) have two leaves now, and the lisianthus is slowly growing, I can finally see it without a magnifying glass 😁. The seeding season has officially begun… I’ll be starting onions in a week.

Aleksan9ra wrote:
Space them 40 cm (16 inches) apart.

I actually plant my eggplants two per hole. The distance between the two stems is just 10 cm (4 inches), and I just shove a support stake right in that gap. They grow excellently like that.

Mariya Suvorova wrote:
I’ll be starting onions in a week.

Masha, why start onions so early, what’s the reason? When do you usually transplant them out to their final spot?

Aleksan9ra wrote:
Marina, this might be helpful for your eggplants…

Lyuda, thank you! My spacing was definitely too tight and I never fed them any magnesium. I’ll make sure to fix that this year.

gala7496 wrote:
Marina, I suck at growing eggplants too. I just gave up on them…

Gal, I don’t want to give up on them just yet, I’ll just try to pay a little more attention to them this time around.

Mariya Suvorova wrote:
…The seeding season has officially begun… I’ll be starting onions in a week.

Masha, why so early? When are you planning to put them in the ground?

Aleksan9ra wrote:
Masha, why start onions so early…

Lyuda, I usually plant them out around April 5th to 10th. The seedlings sit on a window in the garage, it’s quite cool out there, so they don’t get overgrown or leggy. This will be my third year sowing them at this time.

Petrofka wrote:
Masha, why so early? When are you planning to put them in the ground?

Natasha, I always sow them at this time, the timeline works out perfectly for my climate. My early tomatoes go into buckets, the peppers too, and the grafted cucumbers also go into buckets.

Mariya Suvorova wrote:
My early tomatoes go into buckets, the peppers too, and the grafted cucumbers also go into buckets.

Buckets are totally my jam! I actually just watched Lyuda’s video about growing in bags right here in her journal. I’ve been thinking about trying it for a long time. My garden lot is tiny, plus there is constant construction going on… I don’t even have a greenhouse.

I’ve been growing my tomatoes and peppers in buckets and barrels for a long time now. Last season, I grew pumpkins in 100-liter (26-gallon) plastic barrels cut in half. This year, I want to try growing cucumbers on a trellis in bags (I always have to grow them vertically on a trellis, I simply have no room to let them sprawl on the ground).

But I start my seedlings at the normal standard times. I plant them out during the early May holidays, keeping them under temporary row covers.