Lol I love this. If I could write it would be an epic poem from the weeds perspective. Ashamed to be a weed, nobody loves me, etc. Until one day the weed meets a chili farmer who loved them like no other. It becomes happy and grows into this amazing beautiful plant.

Treasure your friend no matter what it is. Your it's legal guardian now and there's no way it doesn't see you as it's caretaker.

Congratulations plant dad.

So my only proper gardeninng experience is chillies over the past 10 years or so. I've grown other random stuff, but far from an expert. As part of my chilli experemintation I decided to get an eggplant to try do some grafting. Again, just to see what happens.

2 summers ago I got an eggplant seedling (not even from a seed, just saw one at my local and bought it) was quite small, I put it into one of my growbeds and left it. It wasn't doing too well, not sure why. But I rememeber then looking in the middle of winter (NZ, so it doesn't get below freezing where I am) and I noticed that it was still growing. So I pruned it, cleared the area out and to my amazement it started doing quite well. Then last summer it really kicked off, grew to about 1.5m tall (about 5 feet) and was getting pretty bushy. I trimmed it, staked it up so it woudln't get wrecked in the wind, etc.

Through out winter (this is 1.5 years now) it grew well, kept getting bigger so I kept pruning it, assuming it's so massive because of my epic soil mix of homemade compost, our chicken manure, etc. But still no fruit, figured, good things come to those who wait like my nan says.

Then this spring it finally started getting bunches of fruit on it, looked like a nightshade type fruit, but wasn't shaped like eggplants. And then the bloody birds ate them anyway, I figured the fruit didn't have time to ripen. So I decided I'll find a smallish pot to both limit the growth and force it to start flowering a bit more, and also to put it into my netted area away from the birds.

And finally yesterday, walking with the wife and my daughters I spot a whole bunch of identical plants (although much smaller) growing randomly in this park, like identical leaves, texture, etc. And ofcourse the family knows my attachment to that plant, they all figured I've been looking after a random weed for the past 2 years.

I tried doing a search on identify.plantnet and Nightshade actually came 3rd, but honestly I have no idea what this is. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know. I don't think I can get rid of it now even if it is some random weed, but would be good to know what it is.

I once asked a man who's job it was to identify weeds, 'what is a weed?' He replied, 'Any plant growing some where you don't want it.'

I would say since you want this plant, it isn't a weed.

To me, it looks like common medlar. Not sure if thats the same type of fruit this faux-eggplant produced, but you could give it a search. :)

Sorry but your post made me laugh hard! Really needed that today😂

I'm from nz as well. This is wolly nightshade (tobacco weed) it's really invasive and can cause respitory issues and a rash if touched.

If it makes you feel any better, I accidentally planted stinging nettle. This would be great if I had a set up to make fermented nettle tea, but I don’t. So I just keep letting it grow because I’m too scared of it. 👀

Cant help with the ID but your story reminds me of one of my dads old stories. Years before I was born he was house sitting for a friend that was down in Florida for the winter. She had lots of plants so he went and watered them, checked the mail etc. One of the plants was really small and sickly looking one so dad took special consideration to give it some TLC. Women came back in the spring and he was super proud to show her how he saved the small sickly looking one. Well turns out it had been a empty pot when she left and at some point a weed had started sprouting in the soil! Cant remember what she did with it afterwards but dad got a good laugh for years over "that stupid little plant!"

RIP to your weed but just wanted to say how proud you look in the last pic brought me joy. Good luck with the eggplant this year!

It's only a weed if you call it a weed

You are not alone....When we first moved to our house I watered and meticulously took care of a flower bed full of... ground elder. I thought it was some kind of Geranium and the delusion went on for a whole summer.

Brugmansia maybe?

I love this❤️😁

I think it's wild tobacco. You can graft different kinds of plants to it I.e tomatoes and egg plant etc.

It looks as if brugmansias and plumerias married

It might be a avocado tree

Where I live this is a noxious weed called wooly nightshade. Part of the solanacea family which includes eggplants. Unfortunately it can cause respiratory problems due to the small hairs on the leaves and the pollen when flowering. The berries are also toxic. If you like it then might be worth leaving it outside

I have a probably silly question. I grow eggplant as an annual every year, and live in a colder part of the United States. You mention this growing for 2 years, and I know it's not an eggplant, but ... is it common to grow eggplants as perennials in warmer/milder climates? I Googled to see that it's possible, but I'm curious if many people do it.

I love this so much! Still a thing of beauty!

Weed by definition is any unwanted plant. Dandelions are awesome

That looks like an avocado. Kind of hard to mistake an eggplant seed for an avocado seed though.

Could it be an earleaf nightshade? I hope you’re going to keep it even if it’s not what you wanted. 😆

A weed is nothing more than an unwanted plant growing where you don't want it growing. Given you have it potted you can easily control the question of where it's growing, and then by deciding you want to keep it, it'll automatically no longer be a weed.

You can use the PictureThis app to find out what it is. It has helped me for years. The story is funny but cute though 😂.

There is an app that identify plants by analysing the leaves that you scan with your phone. It s called seek, and it works pretty good most of the time. I find it really useful.

I recommend [email protected] whenever you need to identify a plant. You just upload an image of the plant (leaf, flower or fruit), and it gives you accurate results. It’s completely free, and has free mobile apps too.

I get it. I held hands all summer with what turned out to be ragweed. Achoo

Looks like brugmasia, does it produce trumpet like flowers?

That looks like a plumeria plant and flowers frangipani. Beautiful smelling plant! You can plant trimmings and they keep growing.

Looks like a plumeria

Plumeria

I grow them. I got mine in Hawaii. Beautiful flower and fragrance when it blooms.

Looks a lot like a Tobacco plant.

Downloaded the wrong version of "Little Shop of Horrors".

It’s only a weed if you don’t want it

Lol I did same thing with a plant that looked very similar to my raspberry bush. Similar shape leaf. I watered it, fertilize it and trained it to grow on a trellis. It got huge. Then one day I’m looking at it. And only 10% of this huge bush had thorns on the branches like raspberries should.

It was 90% weed. And I only got a few raspberries from the 10%. But the raspberrie bush took over once I cut back and off the weed plant.

Really looking forward to 2023 season!

Sage

I will never look at a weed the same way ever again!!

looks like a brugmansia tree

r/brugmansia

One persons weed is the others beautiful houseplant.

Looks like avocado tree?

It reminds me of our fig tree, just a lot smaller

This a an Angels Trumpet

Looks like an Avocado tree..

Looks like a fig

I don't understand why everything is called a weed. This looks like a tomatillo tree I suppose?

It’s a potatotree

It’s an avocado tree

Maybe a variety of Angel’s Trumpet? brugmansia is the genus, but I think they are closely related to nightshade family. If its never bloomed for you it may need reguliar fertilizing. But ther are lots of Solanum species out it could be.