When to Pick Aubergines and Why to Take the First One Early

Take the first fruit off small

The first fruit is the one to sacrifice. Left to grow, it takes everything the young plant has and the plant stops extending, which costs you far more fruit later than the one you gave up.

Pick it at thumb size, or at whatever size it is when you notice. It is perfectly good to eat, and the plant visibly picks up within a week.

The same applies to a plant that already has fruit on it when you buy it. That fruit is what caught your eye in the shop, and taking it off on planting day is the right move.

Picking size by type

Aubergines are bred in very different shapes, and the right size to pick is completely different between them. Going by days from flowering as well as size keeps you consistent.

You can feel when it is ready

A fruit at its best has a high gloss and gives very slightly under light pressure. Once the skin dulls and it feels hard rather than springy, the seeds have set and the texture has gone.

Cut rather than pull. The calyx is spiny and the wood is brittle, so twisting a fruit off tears the shoot it grew on.

Picking late stops the plant

An oversized fruit takes the plant's resources for as long as it is on it, and the flowers above it stop setting. If you find one you missed, take it off whether or not you will eat it.

Because aubergines hide behind their own leaves, look in towards the middle of the plant and from below, not just from above. Missed fruit are almost always the ones nearest the stems.

Once the plant is tired, pick deliberately small. Taking less out of each fruit is itself a way of keeping the plant going.

Late in the season

As nights cool the fruit fill slowly and the skin quality falls. Rather than waiting for full size, pick everything at whatever size it has reached, and clear the plants before frost.

Small late fruit are perfectly usable, and taking them means the plant is not carrying anything it cannot finish.