Zeedman, if you want to learn about dehydrating everything, you must get Mary T Bell's book on dehydrating - cheapest from Amazon. It is one of the oldest on the market but has been updated over the years. She is the dehydrator guru. I simply followed her directions - sliced,steamed the eggplant briefly, and then dried for maybe 3-4 hours - it was the fastest drying of everything I put in the dehydrator. Once dry, you can freeze them or keep them in glass jars. I also use eggplant in omelets or frittatas. You can also use it in casseroles. I make something I call eggplant lasagna which is just layering eggplant, tomatoes and ricotta/mozzarella and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so - the eggplant is already cooked so this is one quick dish. You can then put it over any pasta you like - or none at all. Eggplant is awesome in rattatouille - did I spell that right? That dish has just about anything you want from the garden in it and is just wonderful to make on the grill. Just prep all your veggies before you get started as it goes very fast. I like the eggplant steamed - none of the fat and all of the flavor. I have a Nesco FD 1020 and I really like it - digital thermometer and timer though the timer doesn't mean that much to me since I usually put it on early. What I really like is that the fan is on top - no mess to clean up there.

Sorry about that. I just got home from school yesterday so here are some pictures of the mother plant. My family has not taken good care of it, so I think the abnormal leaves are maybe caused by irregular watering and/or lack of light? I'm pretty confident the red is caused by light intensity, as all of them turned back to green. The first picture is the "normal" leaf I saw when it was growing on my back porch and the second is the "round" kind from the original etiolated plant...

I'm posting pictures as a means to share what I'm dealing with, maybe someone has seen it before? It looks like both of my green zebras have some kind of wilt; It is not affecting any of the other tomatoes. I don't know what kind of wilt it is, or if maybe it's something other than wilt. A few key points: * The bed is brand new, nothing ever grown here previously * It was filled with ~16cu ft. of Miracle Grow Garden Bed soil; 48" x 48" x 12" (L x W x D) * They are not watered daily, soil is moist under the surface, but not saturated * There are two other tomato varieties in the same bed, just a foot or two away, with no wilt problems * There are no signs of moles or other pests in my yard * This location gets at least 6 hours of aternoon sun every day. * The tomatoes had an abundance of 1mm-2mm beige spider/beetle bugs on top of the leaves as reported in the first post of this thread Here are two photos of the two plants in question: I know these aren't the best pictures, they were taken with my Blackberry. Note in the first picture that most of the leaves and branches look amazing - and no bugs - but there are also complete branches just starting to wilt, or fully wilted. The first one looks like it has two small cankers or something on the side, this is how I bought the plant. It was one of the last ones left, and I jumped on it. In the second picture, note that some of the branches that are wilted are coming off of a main stalk, and the rest of the main stalk is fine, as are the other branches coming off of it. It's like ... it's completely random. I don't see any holes in the branches, although there are a lot of "pimples" on the stems of the plant, more so than the other nearby tomatoes, but I just figured this is normal for this variety? I'm tossing it out there just in case. I am going to post these over on the tomato or heirloom forum to see if I can get anyone who has seen something like this. I found a page via Google that talks about green zebra wilt in North Carolina, but it's dated June 2006. Could it be related? http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/tomatowilt06.html

I have been growing eggplants for three years in east central Wisconsin. Ichiban Imp.- wonderful, prolific, tasty Snowy - delicious, prolific, white and lavender Rosa Bianca - only got two, tasty Millionaire - heavy cropping, delicious purple I had the most success growing them in very large plastic and wood pots on my cement patio, which gets quite hot with a lot of reflected sun. I planted petunias in front and eggplant in back of the pots, fertilized them with bloom booster every other week, usually watered daily, depending on the weather. My favorite recipe is to slice them diagonally, add red sweet pepper strips, sometimes zucchini, onion, garlic, then lightly drizzle with a mixture of balsamic vinegar & olive oil. Toss. Spread in foil lined pan, sprinkle with "Mayo Clinic Everyday Seasoning" and roast at 400 degrees for about 25 min. Spread basil pesto on both sides of a split french bread loaf. Layer on veggies, sometimes shrimp or thin sliced smoked ham. Top with cheese. Bake till bubbly & golden. Eat open faced or closed.