Monday, July 18, 2016

Diary of a Young Eggplant, Part II: Seasoned Travelers

Back in May, I planted a somewhat ill-advised garden of vegetables on my fire escape. It's been an auberventure to keep them alive and happy.

Along the way, I've learned some tips about urban gardening that other porch-growers might find useful. But the main task of this entry is to lovingly chart the life-cycle of a single aubergine, from seed to greenhouse to plant store to garden fair to porch to blossom to fruit... i.e., the leafy Bildungsroman promised some entries ago.


I use the word "lovingly" for a reason. Growing vegetables brings out a weirdly maternal side. I find myself out on the fire escape caressing the plants a couple times a day. I'm not quite crooning lullabies at them, but almost. And aware that it's a bit weird.

There's just a certain dorky magic when they start blossoming before your eyes. Almost overnight, my eggplant was decked in big purple flowers. 



with amazing alien spikes on their backsides.


Just like that, I walked out and found two baby eggplants looking... like eggs. They went from flowers to fruit in only a day. For seasoned gardeners, this comes as no surprise -- but for people like me, taking a stab at gardening on a crowded urban porch, the startling pace of nature instills a real sense of wonder. Like my first time witnessing a caterpillar wiggling itself into a chrysalis. 




In their cutest babiest form, these eggplants reminded me of my childhood pet dwarf hamsters: a little head and a little butt with nothing in-between.




Only a couple days later, they looked like real vegetables. They grew almost an inch per day.



I would have let them mature to their adult size (whatever that may be), but I was about to hop on a plane for a week-long vacation...


... so I decided they needed to see the world.


But not before seeking wisdom from an ancient guru.


Plants on a Plane.

Just as I was about to leave for my trip, I noticed that all the purple flowers had fallen off right at the moment when they were supposed to form fruit. Same went for the pepper plant. Turns out this is called blossom drop and it happens whenever plants are stressed -- which can stem from (ha) a huge variety of factors. Too hot, too cold, too moist, too dry, chemical exposure, killer hamsters, not enough sun... the list goes on.

I solved the mystery by talking to some experienced gardeners. Alas, the fertilizer I was using -- coffee grounds -- just wasn't enough for a tiny pot. It takes food to grow food. So I bought a container of nasty fish fertilizer, which is the color and consistency of bird poop with a stench of rotting fish guts. Yum. The smell only amplifies in the summer heat... but the plants love it. Their blossoms are going strong and I'm looking forward to new generations of little fingers soon.


Meanwhile, on vacation, the moment of truth.

Complete with: way too much olive oil. Oops.


This is a sacred moment for an eggplant nerd. In German, the word for "inaugurate" is einweihen, which contains the word weihen meaning "hallow" or "consecrate." 

It turned out to be more of an Einwehung. (Weh = oy vay!) 

As in... a bitter disappointment. 

But on the bright side, maybe my next generation of home-grown eggplants will taste like... tuna?