BS: Need a gardener....help?

Subject: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:07 PM

Please go here and look at this photo. Any ideas how I could get a yellow eggplant/aubergine from a plant with purple fruit????? Just a weirdness.

Still firm, and no frost....tomatoes are about 8yds from the eggplants. Nothing else in garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:13 PM

Well, if the others turned out deep purple then this one is what is known as a "sport" which is like a mutant... But that ain't all bad because maybe this eggplant carries enough genetic mutated material for you to use its seeds and produce yellow eggplants and you can register it and become rich and famous...

But if they are all yellow then some hybridizer beat you to it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:16 PM

I have a yellow eggplant on a plant in my back yard--I assumed it was needing water and fertilizer, which it hasn't had enough of. I've tossed a couple of others in the compost--they were yellow, but also soft. The same plant has a purple fruit also, from a later flower and after it has had some water.

It might taste odd, but I haven't tested it. I think this isn't that unusual if you've had a bad year for other stuff (which we've had here).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:19 PM

Ta....still firm and feels edible...I'll try cooking it and saving seeds...come to chat room?

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:23 PM

Perhaps your plant, while a sport, is also nightshade?

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: pdq
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:29 PM

As the eggplant Cassa Nova said to the cute little lady eggplant...

                     "ah, be a sport"

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:35 PM

Well...doh...of course it's a nightshade....it's eggplant. Just like my tomatoes are nightshade.....potatoes too...don't have any of those....

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 11:29 PM

Ooops--sorry I missed your visit to chat. The test is to taste it, of course--just try to do it in some way so that you don't have the whole family ready to sit down to a great eggplant dinner, only to find it is bitter mush. Try a bite before you cook the entire thing (if you do something like eggplant parmesian, that is. Other recipes may not have an easy way to test them till the whole thing is finished).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 12:08 AM

Where did you get the seeds/starts? If they were from a seed saver instead of a commercial seed grower, he or she may have been growing different varieties and didn't have them sufficiently isolated which would result in cross-pollination. The fruit of plants grown from such cross-pollinated seed would exhibit a lot of recessive and unusual characteristics.

We usually grow four or five varieties of summer squash that bloom at the same time and cross-pollinate like crazy. We don't save or intentionally plant the seeds, but a few volunteers will pop up in the compost pile every year. They are some weird-lookin' squashes.

Subject: RE: BS: Need a gardener....help?
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 12:56 PM

not related to the Eggplant that Ate Chicago?