PlantFiles: Eggplant
Solanum melongena var. esculentum 'Ichiban'

We buy at least one of these every year from Lowe's garden center. It's a cheap trick, to be sure. We have just planted two of them in our very sunny front yard - yes, some people think we're weird for growing veggies in our front yard, but you go where the sun is. We generally plant them in March/April here in zone 9b and get lovely, shiny, purple fruit with very few seeds all summer long - and, believe me, the summers are long here in Florida. If anyone wants to taste some really fantastic fruit and needs any recipes, let me know. We will continue to buy and enjoy this every year. We stake our plants since they get so full of fruit, and ours attain a height of at least 4'.

this is my first year planted ichiban eggplant i bought it from home depot (3" tall). I planted it in the semi shading area. my first fruit is about 6" long and it looks very healthy see pciture. I worried to see some white flies lay eggs under leave. need some help to get rid of white flies.

This plant grows very easily and is prolific. The blossoms are beautiful and it seems that nearly each one bears an eggplant so far. Mine seem to be more thirsty than average and require a nice watering daily. Once the eggplants start growing, they grow very fast on the plant with a nice, deep purple color.

This is the best eggplant I've grown to date. Early, highest production, stellar flavor. It is a smaller eggplant - not quite a 'mini' but almost. Beautiful plant as well.

First the positives, the flowers and plant are very pretty. Deeper purple flowers than other eggplants and lovely purple shading to the leaves and stems as well. The eggplant themselves taste lovely, no bitterness. However, the one caveat I have is that the fruit turns matte quiet quickly, before any of my other eggplants do. So I have to pick them fairly small. I'm not sure if it's because of our extreme heat out here or what exactly. Not sure I will grow this one here again.

I thought I couldn't grow eggplant at an altitude of 7300 ft. in a climate of warm but not hot days, and cool nights. I discovered that Ichiban is very productive in these conditions. I was amazed when I got my first crop. It has a lovely flavor and is very productive. We eat skin and all and have never had any problem with bitterness. Also, I think the purple flowers are really quite lovely.

This is the most prolific and tasty eggplant that I have tried. Ichiban means Number 1 in Japanese and it really is .