Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Dear Jim,
Last year was the second time growing eggplant for me. I was delighted with the outcome. It was also the first time that I have ever used the Mittleider Method of growing. While I was able to figure out how to prune my tomato plants, the eggplants and green pepper plants grew so slowly that I was hesitant to prune them very much except to keep the leaves from touching the ground. Is there a youtube video or photos about how to prune these plants? Or can you give directions about what to look for and how to proceed? I live in a area with a short growing season.

Seedplanter_max & Group:

Pepper plant stems are brittle and break easily, so pruning can be a problem. And unless you are growing one of the greenhouse - indeterminate - varieties, you should not do much pruning anyway. Just keep them from interfering with adjacent plants, and keep them off the ground.

Eggplant pruning is different again. I prune them by taking off sucker stems when they are just beginning, but I leave 3 or 4 main stems. And I use T-Frames and baling twine strings, similar to tomatoes, to hold them up. They can get as tall as 6'+.

Jim Kennard

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