Fruiting vegetable
How to grow aubergines
Solanum melongena
Aubergines crop reliably in the UK only under cover: a greenhouse, polytunnel or bright conservatory. Sow with heat between January and March, plant into 30 cm pots or the greenhouse border in May, and pick from late July to October. Warmth decides everything. Nights below about 15 °C stall growth and stop fruit setting, so an early start, a warm spot and a compact, early variety matter more than any feed.
- Hardiness
- Tender, needs steady warmth
- Position
- Full sun, warm, under glass
- Soil
- Rich, free-draining
- Ideal pH
- 6.0 to 6.8
- Water
- High, steady; mist to raise humidity
- Feeding
- Heavy feeder
Sowing and planting aubergines
WhenSow Jan to Mar with heat; plant out under glass May; harvest Jul to Oct
Starting off
Sow indoors January to March, 0.5 to 1 cm deep at 21 to 25 °C in a heated propagator, germinating in 10 to 21 days; grow on at 18 to 21 °C with maximum light. Prick out into 9 cm pots, pot on to 12 cm, and plant under glass in May, outdoors only in the warmest sheltered gardens in June. Pinch the tip at 30 cm to encourage branching.
Spacing and planting
Plant 45 to 60 cm apart in a greenhouse border or one per 25 to 30 cm pot or two per growbag; stake each with a 60 to 90 cm cane. Plant at pot depth. A single plant crops in a 30 cm pot in a warm, sheltered spot but needs daily water; grafted plants give double the yield.
Varieties worth growing
- Moneymaker F1
- The standard UK greenhouse aubergine: early, sets fruit in cooler conditions than most and carries long, dark purple fruit.
- Bonica F1
- Large, oval, glossy fruit on a sturdy plant; one of the most reliable for an unheated greenhouse.
- Black Beauty
- Open-pollinated heritage variety with big, rounded fruit. Needs the longest, warmest season, so sow it early or not at all.
- Pinstripe F1
- Compact plant to about 60 cm with small, purple and white striped fruit; bred for patio pots and needs little staking.
- Ophelia F1
- Clusters of egg-sized fruit that ripen sooner than full-sized types; a good choice for pots and for cooler summers.
Aubergines month by month
Timings are for central England. Allow two weeks later in the north and on cold, heavy soil.
- January
Sow in a heated propagator only if you can keep seedlings at 18 °C and give them good light afterwards.
- February
Main sowing with heat. Order grafted plants for May delivery.
- March
Last sowing early in the month. Prick out into 9 cm pots and keep in full light.
- April
Pot on to 12 cm pots. Keep above 16 °C at night; a cold check now costs weeks.
- May
Plant into 30 cm pots, growbags or the greenhouse border. Stake. Pinch out the tip at 30 cm.
- June
First flowers. Mist daily, tap the flowers at midday and start regular feeding once fruit sets.
- July
Feed and water steadily. Pinch out later flowers once 5 or 6 fruit have set. First fruit late in the month.
- August
Cut fruit while glossy. Check under leaves weekly for red spider mite.
- September
Keep picking. Remove new flowers, which will not ripen. Ventilate against grey mould.
- October
Pick the last fruit before nights fall below 10 °C, then clear the plants and empty the pots.
- November
Nothing to do. Wash down the greenhouse glass and staging.
- December
Nothing to do. Order seed.
Feeding aubergines
Feed like a tomato that needs more heat: a base feed in the compost carries the plant to flowering, then regular potash-led top-dressing while the fruit swells. Feeding will not make a cold plant set fruit.
A balanced feed, then high-potassium when fruiting; consistent warmth is essential.
Feeding plan
May, potting into the final pot
5 g per litre of compost mixed through: about 75 g for a 30 cm pot holding 15 litres. Use the same 5 g per litre in a growbag.
May, planting into a greenhouse border
100 g/m² forked in before planting, then 50 g/m² when the first fruit sets (the label's first-truss dose for tomatoes).
From first fruit set, every 3 weeks until early September, pots
2 g per litre of pot volume scattered on the surface and watered in: 30 g for a 15 litre pot. The label range is 1 to 3 g per litre every 2 to 4 weeks.
Every 2 to 3 weeks while fruit is swelling
1 g per litre of water, as a normal watering: 10 g in a 10 litre can.
Only if older leaves yellow between the veins
Kieserite (magnesium sulphate)
2 g per litre of water drenched over the root zone; repeat once after three weeks if the yellowing persists.
Signs to watch
Flowers dropping and no fruit set
Temperatures below 18 °C or above 30 °C and dry air, not feeding
Warm, mist and tap flowers at midday
Older leaves yellow between the veins
Magnesium locked out by high-potash feeding
Epsom salts spray
Dark, lush plants with few flowers
Excess nitrogen
Switch to a high-potash feed
Pests, diseases and problems
Leaves finely speckled pale yellow, then bronzed and dry, with fine webbing at the shoot tips
Glasshouse red spider mite, which thrives in hot, dry air and prefers aubergine to almost anything else in the greenhouse
Mist the plants and damp down the greenhouse floor daily in hot weather; introduce the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis at the first speckling; remove the worst leaves.
Clouds of small white insects fly up when the plant is touched; leaves sticky and then black with sooty mould
Glasshouse whitefly
Hang yellow sticky traps to spot them early and introduce the parasitic wasp Encarsia formosa from May, before numbers build.
Green or pink insects clustered on shoot tips and under young leaves, leaves curling
Aphids
Squash small colonies by hand, wash off with a jet of water, and leave the greenhouse door open by day so hoverflies and ladybirds can find them.
Grey, fuzzy mould on fading flowers, fruit stalks and stem wounds
Grey mould (botrytis) in cool, still, damp air, usually from September
Ventilate, water in the morning at the base, pick off spent petals stuck to young fruit and cut out infected tissue promptly.
Plant wilts on hot days and recovers at night, lower leaves yellow from the edge, brown staining inside the stem base
Verticillium wilt, a soil fungus that builds up in greenhouse borders used for tomatoes, peppers and aubergines
No cure. Remove the plant with its roots, and grow in pots or growbags of fresh compost, or on grafted plants, in following years.
Pale, sunken, papery patches on the side of the fruit facing the glass
Sun scald in a heatwave
Shade the glass with netting or shade paint from June and keep enough leaf over the fruit.
Harvest and rotation
Harvest and storage
Cut when the fruit is full size, glossy and springs back when pressed, 18 to 22 weeks from sowing; once dull it is over-ripe and bitter. Cut with secateurs and 2 cm of stalk, wearing gloves for the spiny calyx. Limit to 5 to 6 fruits per plant by pinching later flowers. Use within a week from a cool larder; roast and freeze.
Rotation and companions
Rotation: potato family (Solanaceae) with tomatoes and peppers, 3 to 4 year gap outdoors and fresh compost in pots each year. Keep away from cucumbers, which want more humidity, and from fennel.
Good to knowBest under glass in the UK.
Growing aubergines in pots
Most UK aubergines are grown in pots, and they do well in them. Give each plant a 30 cm pot (about 15 litres) of peat-free multipurpose compost with the tomato feed mixed through, or put two in a growbag. Stand the pot in the warmest, brightest part of the greenhouse, not behind the tomatoes. In high summer a fruiting plant needs watering every day, and the compost should never dry out or sit in a full saucer overnight. Black pots against the glass can overheat the roots in a heatwave, so shade the pot, not the plant. Compact types such as Pinstripe and Ophelia will crop in a 25 cm pot on a sheltered, sunny patio from mid June in a warm summer. Use fresh compost every year.
Aubergines: common questions
Can you grow aubergines outside in the UK?
Only in the warmest, most sheltered gardens in the south, and even there the crop is small and late. Plant out in June against a sunny wall, choose a compact early variety such as Ophelia, and expect two or three fruit per plant where a greenhouse plant gives five or six.
Why is my aubergine flowering but not fruiting?
The flowers are not being pollinated, almost always because of temperature or dry air. Fruit sets best between 18 and 30 °C with some humidity. Mist the plants, tap the flowers at midday to shake the pollen, and keep the greenhouse closed on cold nights.
How many aubergines do you get per plant?
Five or six full-sized fruit per plant is a good result in a UK greenhouse. Pinch out any further flowers once that many have set, so the plant ripens them properly. Small-fruited varieties carry many more, in clusters.
Sources
Growing information on this page was checked against these references in November 2026. Feeding rates are Dr Forest label rates.