Egg and Chips®

On Arrival

Your Egg & Chips® has a tendency to grow towards the light whilst in transit. Please stand your plant unright where it will quickly straighten. Soak the rootball in a tray of water for half an hour if it seems to have dried out in transit.

What next

Grow Egg & Chips® plants on in warm, frost-free conditions until all risk of frost has passed, potting on if necessary to a slightly bigger pot. After the last frost, gradually acclimatise indoor plants to outdoor conditions over a period of 7 to 10 days. Alternatively plant Egg & Chips® directly into its final position in a frost-free greenhouse.

Where to grow your plants

Grow Egg & Chips® in a greenhouse or sheltered position outside in full sun. For best results grow in a container which holds at least 40 litres of compost, or a deep container with at least 50cm (20") diameter. A large container is needed for proper development of both crops.Alternatively grow plants in the ground in fertile, reliably moist, well drained soil. Prepare the soil in spring by adding plenty of well rotted manure to improve structure and fertlity. Space plants 60cm (24in) apart and water them thoroughly after planting.

Planting and support

Plant grafted aubergine-potato plants with the graft union below soil level, burying the stem up to the second aubergine leaf from the base. This aids stability and growth, and ensures the potatoes develop fully underground.

Potato shoots may emerge from below soil level through the season, remove these to prevent wasted energy.

Water Egg & Chips® plants frequently to keep the compost evenly moist.

We recommend a one off feed of incredicrop at planting time, it provides all your plant’s needs for the whole growing cycle, and we’ve seen some impressive results with this method on our own technical growing trials. Alternatively, good results can also be had from a standard liquid tomato fertiliser feeding regime - once the first truss has set start to offer a weekly feed of Chempak Soluble Tomato Food, then twice weekly at second truss stage and with every watering from 3rd truss stage. Plants will benefit from the application of Chempak® Calcium Multi Action Fertiliser during peak cropping times to prevent blossom end rot.

Egg & Chips® can sometimes produce potato foliage from the base of the plants which may grow through the aubergine foliage. These can be removed by pinching out to ground level and will not affect the potato harvest. Top up the compost in containers every so often to prevent potatoes near the soil surface from becoming green and inedible.

Once container-grown plants have produced 4 or 5 fruits pinch out the top of the main stem,. This focuses the plant’s energy on producing a good crop of large, high quality aubergines. Greenhouse plants do not require stopping and can be left to grow on as required.

Aubergines can be harvested as they ripen from August to October. If growing in container, plants can be moved to a frost-free position in the autumn for prolonged aubergine cropping. Once the aubergines have finished cropping, cut back plants to the base and harvest the potatoes below. Leave potatoes in the compost for 2 weeks before lifting.

If growing Egg & Chips® outdoors, remove any remaining aubergiones before the first frosts in autumn. Cut the plant stem to ground level and leave for 10-14 days before lifting the potatoes below. PLEASE NOTE: Although potato plants normally produce poisonous fruits, crops from Egg & Chips® pose no risk and have been certified free of any harmful glycoalkaloids.

Seeds and garden supplies will normally be delivered within the time period stated against each product as detailed above. Plants, bulbs, corms, tubers, shrubs, trees, potatoes, etc. are delivered at the appropriate time for planting or potting on. Delivery times will be stated on the product page above, or in your order acknowledgement page and email.

Orders for packets of seed incur a delivery charge of £2.99.

Orders which include any other products will incur a delivery charge of £6.99.

Where an order includes both packets of seeds and other products, a maximum delivery charge of £7.99 will apply - regardless of the number of items ordered.

Large items may incur a higher delivery charge - this will be displayed in your shopping basket.

Please see our Delivery page for further details, and more information on different charges that may apply to certain destinations.

For more information on how we send your plants please visit our Helpful Guide on plant sizes.

Thompson & Morgan strives to ensure that all its plants are delivered to you in the perfect condition for planting. While the majority of our nursery plants cope well with slight delays in intransit, sadly, the time it takes to deliver to certain locations in the UK means that we can't guarantee this for some of our smaller plug products and tender bedding and vegetable lines, which do not respond well to the extra journey time. So regretfully while we offer the majority of our live plant offering nationwide, we are unable to ship plugs, begging plants and tender vegetable plants to the following areas: HS, IV41-IV49, IV51, IV55-56, KW15-KW17, PA34, PA41-48, PA60-PA78, PA80, PH40-PH44, TR21-TR24, ZE1-ZE3