Aubergine · La Pintana, Santiago Metropolitan, Chile
When to plant aubergines in La Pintana
Main outdoor window
5-26 Oct
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
14 September
In La Pintana, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
9-24 Dec
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in La Pintana
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
20 Jul - 10 Aug
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant out
5-26 Oct
Three weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
9-24 Dec
Aubergines through the year
Against the frost risk in La Pintana
Why these dates
Aubergine roots resent disturbance and cold. Waiting an extra week for warm soil consistently outperforms planting early and hoping.
Killed at 0C and set back badly by anything under 10C. In cool-summer climates this crop belongs in a greenhouse or polytunnel.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Aubergines are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 3 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for La Pintana.
The median frost-free season here is 265 days, against 65 to 80 days to maturity for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in La Pintana
Other vegetables to time
Growing aubergines in La Pintana
When should I plant aubergines in La Pintana?
Aim for 5-26 Oct in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 26 Oct - 16 Nov - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will aubergines be ready to harvest in La Pintana?
Expect to start picking around 9-24 Dec, based on 65 to 80 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will aubergines tolerate?
Killed at 0C and set back badly by anything under 10C. In cool-summer climates this crop belongs in a greenhouse or polytunnel.