Aubergine and Peppers

Hi

I am growing both in my greenhouse this year. Do I have to prick the side shoots, as with tomatoes, or just leave them to grow?

 

peppers, you leave all shoots on i think, never grown aubergine so can't help there!

 

I've never grown aubergines, but with peppers you dont take out the side shoots.
You can thin the fruits if you get too many set at once.

 

I have grown Aubergines once an am going to again this year when the seed finally arrives from Fothergills. As Pete says thin the fruit as required not the shoots on them and peppers.

Has anyone else used Fothergills for seed off the web. They seem a bit lax had to pursue them on Friday as my order had still not arrived after a week. Usually with purchases from the net I recieve things within a day or two. Perhaps I have been luck previously!

 

They were REALLY slow to deliver for me too, and if you check around you'll find their prices are often sky high too. Their success lies in making sure they have a very visible web presence I think, otherwise they don't have a great deal to recommend them over competitors, in my opinion.

 

Thanks Midwich, don't think I shall use them again. It's the first time I have purchased seeds from the web normally I would buy them from a local GC where I can see what I am getting and paying for them. I thought speed was of the essence and I would get them in a couple of days, proves just how wrong I can be!:(

 

I agree with the others about Peppers i.e. don't remove side shoots.

There are two views on Aubergines depending upon if you want size or quantity.

For example; Pinch the plant out at about 6" high to encourage the plant to split into two then allow two-three fruits per branch.

The alternative is to leave them to there own resources and don't pinch out and get numerous small fruits.

Then I suppose you could do a bit of both if you like

Aubergines; http://tinyurl.com/2ebw3a

Pepper; http://tinyurl.com/yumflv

 

hi what do you mean by pinch out im also growing aubergines.
thanks.

 

When I grew them the year before last I worked on the premise of limiting the number of aubergine to encourage them to concentrate their energies into half a dozen decent sized ones as opposed to leaving it to their devices. This year I might experiment and try growing a couple of plants and trying both methods.

 

Hammer, some people pinch the top out of the growing plant to make it branch out and thus have more flowers to germinate into fruit. However, I pinched out some of the flowers to limit the number of fruit so that more growth would go into those that remained. I hope I am explaining it simple enough for you. It really depends whether you want a lot of small ones or fewer larger aubergines.

 

Initially remove the growing tip.

This will cause the plant to form at least two branches.

If you want to grow numerous fruit then again remove the growing tip from the branches formed once they are about 6" long.

This will cause the branch/es to double up again. I wouldn't recommend any further nipping out from this stage.