The plant will definitely continue to grow and set more fruit. In the summer of '06 when I finally gave up (2nd year of severe drought and wildfire) and completely quit watering the garden the second week of June, the eggplants continued to grow and set/ripen fruit until a freeze hit them in late November or early December. They did this with no irrigation and only miniscule rainfall.

The plant ought to be continuing to grow taller and bushier and put out new leaves and new flowers/fruit. If it isn't, it might need to be fed with a good balanced fertilizer. If the foliage is growing and the plant itself is not blooming/setting fruit, you might want to feed it Bloom Booster or something similar.

You can cage the plant with a standard commercial tomato cage wrapped in chicken wire or bird netting. Although the tomato cages sold in most stores are not really large enough for indeterminate tomatoes, they are the perfect size for most peppers and eggplants. You alsco could try sprinkling cayenne pepper or any other hot pepper flakes on the ground around the plants as a repellent because squirrels do not like hot pepper.

Dawn

Thanks, Dawn...the nerve of these squirrels!! (of course, also having a large pecan tree with unlimited nuts for burying doesn't help!!)
I'll tell her about your tips :)

Sharon,

If there is an animal or bird that will destroy plants OR animals, we have it here. Generally, a barrier like a fence, cage or bird netting works best in most cases.

Surprisingly, squirrels have been only a minor pest here, but they provide quite a lot of entertainment. They do like to sit on the roof of the chickencoop and "scold" all the chickens trying to make them "go away" I guess, so the squirrels can run down into the fenced chicken run and steal some hen scratch. To retaliate, the cats sit on top of the roof of the chicken coop and watch out for the squirrels. So, then the squirrels sit in the pecan tree and scold the cats. THEN, the cats get mad and run up the tree after the squirrels. The fun continues until the squirrels jump from the pecan tree to another tree, and the cats can't make that jump.

I've NEVER had squirrels in the garden and I assume that is because of the well-trained watch cats, or the dogs. I do have one dog--a Rottweiler--who has JUST discovered at the age of three (guess he has not been paying attention prior to now) that we grow tomatoes AND he can reach up and pull them off the plants AND he likes to eat them. LOL If I only had a couple of plants, I might get mad at him, but I always have plenty of tomatoes to spare, so I find it amusing.

Between the dogs and the cats, the squirrels usually confine themselves to the woods, where we have lots of pecan, acorn and hickory trees to keep them busy.

Dawn