I trialed a new eggplant this summer and fell in love with it! Called Little Prince, it produces quantities of glossy three to four inch ovals that are perfect for stir frying or roasting.
Little Prince is a very early and highly productive eggplant with a compact habit, making it a great choice for containers or in small gardens. A member of the nightshade family or Solanaceae, a plant family that includes eggplant, peppers, potatoes and tomatoes, the term ‘nightshade‘ may have been coined because some of these plants prefer to grow in shady areas, and some flower at night.
Deep purple, egg-shaped fruit should be harvested at baby size-3 to 4 inches, and are delicious roasted or in dips and salads. Thornless leaves and calyxes allow for painless harvesting and makes Little Prince child-friendly, too. Plants will continue to produce fruit throughout the entire season.
Still susceptible to flea beetles which can decimate the leaves, older eggplants can sail through this but young plants will usually die from the effects.
Flea beetles, tiny black insects that pepper the leaves of eggplants with holes can be a problem. A good control is using yellow or white sticky traps around your eggplants to catch the flea beetles. Give the eggplant a gentle shake- the flea beetles will jump off and land on the sticky paper squares. Place several of these around your eggplant for a good trapping system. Praying Mantis take care of flea beetles on my eggplants. It is interesting to watch these voracious bug eating machines go after them.
Claire,
I returned from visiting my family in England for 3 months and happened to buy one of these ” Little Princes” which was in a pot and already blooming. The small eggplants I have enjoyed were deliciously sweet and really many! The trick is to keep harvesting before they get to big. I bought it in desperation to adorn quickly my outdoor table..wanted something pretty that I could eat! Wonderful results! Sue
Susan, Yes, it produces many of them. Glad that you enjoyed them!
I ‘might’ have grown these also…since I didn’t write the variety down, out of sight-out of mind, but they are small, very small, and look a lot like your photographs.