I got a 4 pack of eggplant to throw in the garden this year but I've never grown eggplant before. I grow cucumbers in 20 gallon tubs and they do well. Do eggplants need a similar sized container or can I get away with 5 gallon buckets?
Five gal. buckets should do you fine, John. Just be sure and drill drainage holes in the bottom.
Last year I had a surplus of Marconi, and cayenne peppers and planted them two per five gallon container as a trial and they turned out to be the most productive peppers on the place and were nice looking plants on the patio.
I also grow cherry and currant tomatoes in five gallon buckets. Works great.
I see no reason that eggplants would not do as well.
Let us know how it works!
Charlie
5's will do, a little bigger is better. Treat as tomatoes and they'll probably do fine. Ichiban and similar "Japanese eggplants" do better for me in containers than their regular globe eggplant counterparts, fwiw.
I have two Ichiban (is that correct spelling for the long eggplants) in 20 gallon containers. They are doing beautifully. With vegetables I think the bigger the better. Also make sure you use a fertilizer which has all the trace elements in it. If you can't find one, water the plants with liquid seaweed and fish emulsionl
They're Ichiban but this is what I needed to know. My tomatoes are all in 20 gallon tubs so it looks like the eggplants will get those too. I just didn't want to put them in a big container if they would waste the space. I know people grow tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets but when I experimented last year with growing them in 5 gallon buckets, the same tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets produced a lot less than the ones grown in the 20 gallon tubs.
Very true. But they will produce in 5 gallon cans, especially if you do something like drip irrigation to help level out the water applications.
If you're growing just one cultivar, it probably makes sense to grow fewer plants in bigger containers. If you're growing one plant of each of several cultivars, it may make more sense to grow in smaller containers -- you'll get fewer fruit from each plant, but make up for it with multiple plants.
Kay
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