Please help me win my bet with DH! (Container veg questions)

[ahagwearsapointybonnet]

I am a relative food-growing novice, but bought a couple of veggie plants (well technically I think they are fruits!) on sale in the garden centre a while back, to try out in pots in the garden - one aubergine plant and one chilli. They were fairly small but healthy-looking and it said they were grafted ones which supposedly would fruit better.

Anyway, DH took it upon himself to scoff at them and has variously said he would eat his hat/give me £5 if I ever got an aubergine off the aubergine plant! (It has to be big enough to eat, apparently).

Well, the aubergine did nothing much for a long while and I'd nearly given up, especially as we are up North so I thought it would get too cold for it in Autumn. But suddenly it did produce a flower or two, and now does have a fruit (just one...) - but so far only about 3cm long! So my plan is to get it as big as possible, but without risking anything bad happening to it, and then put it in a ratatouille or something with some extra aubergine from the shop if necessary. (He didn't say it had to be enough for a meal, just that it had to be edible!).

So now I am just wondering what is the best way to get it to keep growing as big as possible, while minimising the risk of it falling off/going rotten/anything else first? And also how to know when it's got as far as it's likely to and I should pick it? It is still in a pot out on the decking at the moment, but I could possibly bring it into the porch, though it might be at risk of damage from bikes, kids etc there...

Also my chilli plant doesn't have a bet on it, but does have two rather nice-looking chillies, which stayed green for weeks and now have suddenly turned a lovely bright orange within the space of a week! So I have the same sort of questions about those too really - when to pick them, whether I should wait and hope for them to go all the way to red, whether to bring them inside now it's getting colder (they are out next to the aubergine at the moment), etc....

So any advice welcome, I am determined to get my £5 from DH! Thank you!

Depends where you are. Are you likely to get frost?

Living in North East England. I don't think frost is likely quite yet. But it's definitely getting colder.

If you have space bring them in.
Well done.

Esiotrot.....

I had to think about that one Windy! Surely you aren't suggesting winning by deception ! No I have faith in my teeny aubergine though!

Thanks Mike, I will have a look at the porch and see whether it's possible, someone's just bunged another bike there though so space may be becoming an issue! (They were hung up, but one of the hooks is coming loose...)

Just imagine going to the garden centre every week going up a size!!
Plan B if your way doesn't work!!

I'm missing a trick here aren't I! 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆 Never got to use that one before! Oh and🌶️ for good measure. Though both of those look distinctly bigger and riper than mine.

The small aubergines I've grown have been quite bitter so when you come to cook it, cut it in half and coat the cut halves with salt. Leave for 20 mins or so then rinse the salt off with the bitter juices.

Can you bring them in on to a windowsill, or next to a window? They, especially the aubergine, need warmth and light.

Eat the chilli whenever you fancy. There's a theory that the warmer they are when they ripen, the hotter they get. Unless you know what sort they are, it's a bit challenging to use them. I had one which had marble sized fruits - I dropped one into a big pan, and the result was too hot for any of us. So next day I added stuff to halve the concentration of chilli ... it wasn't till the third day of adding stuff that we got down to "pleasantly spicy".

If you have somewhere you can keep it indoors, you may be able to overwinter the chilli - doesn't always work . You need to be vigilant for greenfly.