Fruit vegetables
Aubergine
Solanum melongena
Timings for your region
Suggested: Moderate · Explained in the glossary
Start indoorsmid February – late March
Plantinglate May – early June
Harvestearly August – early October
Practical tip
Only reliable outdoors in genuinely warm spots — far safer in a greenhouse or against a south-facing wall.
Origin & history
The aubergine comes from India and Southeast Asia and reached the Mediterranean through Arab traders, where it has been grown since the Middle Ages. The forms first known in Europe were small, white and egg-shaped — hence the English “eggplant” and the old German name Eierfrucht. It only really arrived in German kitchens with Mediterranean and Turkish cooking from the 1960s onward.
Varieties
For German gardens, early varieties with small to medium fruit are the right choice — the slim, elongated types finish more reliably than the fat black supermarket ovals. There are also white, striped and pale violet varieties; the differences in taste are smaller than the differences in looks. Older varieties sometimes carry spines on the calyx, which the variety description will tell you. For a greenhouse, grafted young plants are worth it: they root more strongly and keep cropping further into autumn.
Care
Warmth is everything: greenhouse, south-facing wall or a tub of about 15 litres upward, plus a dark mulch that heats the soil. Tie to a sturdy cane early — a full-grown fruit easily weighs half a kilo and snaps the shoots. Water evenly and generously; if the root ball dries out the plant drops its flowers and the fruit stays small and tough. In our summers you leave four to six fruits on the plant and cut out the tip in early to mid-August so they actually finish.
What can go wrong
Flower drop is the main annoyance and nearly always has to do with temperature: cold nights below 15 °C, cold soil after planting out too early, and under glass also trapped heat. Better to plant a week later, put fleece on for cool nights and ventilate properly on hot days. Spider mites are the second greenhouse classic — fine pale speckling and webbing on the undersides of the leaves; they come with dry air, so water well, keep the humidity up and look at the undersides regularly. Aubergines, tomatoes and peppers are all nightshades and share the same soil-borne pathogens: they take the same slot in the rotation and should not come back to the same bed for at least three years.
Harvest, storage & kitchen
An aubergine is ready when the skin is glossy and a thumb press springs back only slowly; once the skin goes dull and the fruit feels hard it is overripe, the seeds turn brown and the taste becomes bitter. Cut it off with secateurs and a piece of the woody stalk. In the fridge it develops brown bruised patches — at 10 to 12 °C it keeps about a week, not much longer. Salting and draining is no longer necessary with today’s varieties, but it does reduce how much oil the flesh takes up when frying.
All timings are guide values for the given climate, not a guarantee. Weather, aspect and variety all have a say.