Todd wrote:
On 07/07/2014 12:15 PM, Brooklyn1 wrote:


Eggplant being in the nightshade family does most of it's growing at
night... needs hot sunny weather during daytime when it stores
energy, then at night it uses that energy to grow. There are many
types of eggplant, I mostly grow the Chinese and Japanese eggplant,
they have thinner skin and far fewer seeds, I also like their
configuration (long/thin) for grilling.
http://www.foodsubs.com/Eggplants.html
Occasionally I'm treated with a 'girly' eggplant:
http://i57.tinypic.com/2hplwjt.jpg


Hi Brooklyn1,

I have been told by someone that tomatoes only
ripen at night when it is nice and hot. Is this
the case? It has been 95 F in the day and 65 F
at night.

Many thanks,
-T

I suggest both of these ideas are somewhat faulty.

Plants do have two major cycles to their growth, one that makes sugars via
photosythesis the other that turns sugars into new tissue. The first only
happens under light the second any time the sugars are available. So tissue
construction does happen at night but there is no reason to think that those
of the nightshade family grow mainly at night. Sheldon may have some fact
to contradict me or may just reply with abuse as usual.

On the tomatoes they do like it warm but not too warm. If the temperature
gets too high it interferes with correct flowering and fertilisation and so
with fruit production. I think this idea of ripening at night may be a
distorted view of that, because it isn't so hot at night they do better
then, or something like that. As said before tomatoes will be doing tissue
building and other metabolic processes at night but I don't think that
translates to ripening only or even mainly at night.

In any case it makes no difference as night and day will happen regardless.

D