Did you know that eggplant is a fruit? It’s actually called a berry and is from the Nightshade plant family that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers.
I love to grow eggplant in our garden because it has gorgeous purple blooms…
and dark purple leaves and stems. (Japanese variety)
Other varieties have light purple blooms, green stems,
thorns around the base of the flowers,
and a different leaf structure.
Here are the different stages of growth…bud to flower to fruit.
Last year we grew three different varieties…Italian, Graffiti, and Japanese. Our favorite is the long Japanese variety.
We were overrun by eggplants last year so I only planted one variety this year.
How to cook eggplants
There are lots of good eggplant recipes available…the most common in the US is probably eggplant parmesan.
We enjoyed several different eggplant dishes when we lived in China…so we searched for a recipe with those flavors.