Thanks for the input. I'll take a closer look at them today. There was actual ponded water in my garden for a few days but it was off to the left side of the picture, where the tomato plants are. The rest of the garden was waterlogged for close to 2 weeks. When it finally dried out, the soil became like a rock. I've tilled it a couple of times. It's actually pretty dry now. When I planted these eggplants, they were the best I ever had. The plants were about 1' tall with thick stems, lush leaves and the roots were breaking through the peat pots. I'll check the roots in a little while. I wonder if it would help if I moved each plant about 1' from where they stand now so they won't be sitting right in the rot plus mix some more compost in each hole. I'll try anything.

Here are some eggplant recepie1: With a bumper crop of tomatoes and eggplants, nowadays I cook these often. A- Eggplant parmesan(google it ) B- my recepie: I grow and use asian varieties but you can do with others to: \These are approximate portions\\ -- 1 lb eggplant -- 1 lb tomato -- 1 whole garlic -- 1 teaspoon lemon/lime juice -- 2-3 EGGS -- salt/pepper to tase DIRECTIONS: 1-puncture eggplants with fork 2- cut the top of whole garlic(just the tips of cloves) 3- wrap garlic in al.foil 4- put eggplants, garlic in 350F oven (place eggplant on a rack with drip catcher under it. Bake for one hour (longer if eggplants are tooo fat). while eggplants/garlic baking do following: 5- dip tomatoes in boiling water (5-10 sec), then put in ice water. 6- Saute some onions (half of medium) 7- brake eggs, separate yokes and whites.Beat them. 8- peel, core, cut into pieces the tomatoes, start boiling them in a pot, add sauted onions,salt/pepper, continue simmering @ low heat. 9- when 1 hr time is up, take out eggplants/garlic from oven, let them cool so you can handle them. 10- cut eggplants lengthwise, scrape the inside (w/knif or spoon), get rid of skin, lightly chop them 11- Press the garlic to get the soft part out, chop it. 12 - Add eggplants/garlic to tomatoes, continue simmering until has a good thick consistency. 13 - with a spoon pour egg yoke drop , here and there (do not mix, you want to see the color ) 14- before serving, do the same with egg whites, Again, little bit at a time, here and there, NO mixing, add lemon juice. Voilla! This can be an appetizer or just a meal if there is enough of it to go around. This is in a way like Italian "eggplant Parmesan", which eggs are used instead of cheese, ang eggplants are baked instead of frying.

Depends on how you froze it. If you can separate the slices (we freeze ours individually first) then use it frozen. Thawed, it turns quite soft and mushy so is difficult to work with - possible but difficult. If you can't separate them then suggest chopping while still partially frozen and then thaw it. Dave

Ezzirah, You're welcome. I've found I have a lot better gardening success when I focus on giving each plant what it needs and that's especially true of vegetables. They just won't perform if they are too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry. Susan, I remember "spit baths" too. lol The cold doesn't scare me. I have an order of 5,000 square feet of floating row cover scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, so I can do as I please (within reason) and just cover it all up. Now I won't have to decide which plants get covered and which ones don't. I still will have to decide which plants get the premium 8-degree frost blanket (I only have 120 s.f. of it), the midweight 4-degree row cover, or which ones get a more lightweight covering that gives about 2 degrees of protection. However, at the present time it is a moot point because there's nothing in the ground now that can't survive freezing temperatures although it is always in the back of my mind that the minute I put tender vegetation in the ground, frost will come swooping in unexpectedly to try to kill the plants. My problem is that I have nine thousand things going on at once and I can't even seem to find the time to get anything planted. Between the fires and company coming to visit, animals needing attention and care, a lawn that needs mowed and weed-eated and watered and a house that needs cleaned, and so on and so forth, I've barely stepped foot in the garden the last 4 or 5 days. Tomorrow, I'm going to get up, go straight outside and get busy planting and I'm not going to let anything distract me. Next week's cold spell bothers me a little and would bother me more if I were further north. I'm so far south and the soil temps are averaging above 70 at planting depth, so a brief dip at night won't bother my plants because I can cover them. I sure wouldn't even contemplate putting tender plants into the ground if my soil temps were still low or if I didn't have a way to cover up and protect them. We need for the cooler weather to return and hopefully it will give some of us some rain. The humidity here is so low today (right now it is 16%) that my skin feels like it is cracking, and we need moisture in the worst way. Part of my "to do" list today is to water the soil around the foundation of our home and outbuildings. That's usually more of a summer type task. Dawn