Eggplants turning brown, yellow, green

[schill93]

I have two eggplant growing in a 15 gallon container. Appeared reasonably healthy with exception of some holes being eaten in some leaves. (Could not find source of munchers)
First Black Beauty eggplant picked was a decent size (medium store bought size). After that all the rest of the eggplants ) which started out purple) after only about two or three inches in size started to change color. I wound up cutting them all off and throwing them away.

Temperatures here are in the 100's, (Las Vegas desert) but the plants only get the morning sun for about 5-6 hours, so they are not baking in the sun. I feel it may be some kind of deficiency.

There are three new babies now that are purple, and before they start to turn bad, I'd like to try and correct what ever is ailing them.

I have sprayed plant with a soap/neem oil spray while looking for critters that I can't find. Only some of the leaves have holes eaten on them. Any idea what it might be and why these eggplants are going bad as they start to grow larger? Sorry, I should have taken a picture of one of the bad ones before throwing away, but didn't' think to at the time. They are being fed at least weekly with a good fertilizer (non organic) that contains many micros in addition to NPK, and I supplement that with calcium nitrate with a little epson salt as well in smaller doses. Just recently for good measure I also stuck some small fertilizer spikes in the pots for good measure as well, as I know nutrients get washed out quickly as I need to water quite frequently in these temperatures of 105-110 (three times a day)

[Kikaida]

What's eating your plants are probably grasshoppers/locusts...They stop, munch and leave. Got one yesterday on my eggplant after wonder what was going on. A flick to the head will kill them. I noticed my eggplant is getting weird with the heat. They go from shiny purple to a flat purple...This time of year, they don't appear that they are going to get as big and nice as earlier in the season. Sort of like my tomatoes...the longer they're out, the smaller the average fruit. Going to start picking my eggplants sooner.
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I don't think anything is necessarily 'wrong', just 'typical' for this heat. Maybe back off the ferts a little bit and go to a 10 day schedule instead of 5-7?

[GreenFarmer]

i would try and keep the waterings to 2 and avoid watering in mid day heat, try and increase the 2 waterings and skip the mid one, if absolutely necessary i would at least cover the medium insulate it from heat a lil bit

[schill93]

Yes, I could lessen the watering, but we are about to reach record temperatures this week in excess of 110 all week. I have insulated the containers pretty well I think with a reflective waffle insulation wrapped around each container twice and about 2+ inches of mulch on top and they only get morning sun.

Hadn't considered over fertilizing, since they start out good while small and then turn. I was thinking just the opposite, as the frequent watering will flush out nutrients. Also thought because we have extremely hard water here in Las Vegas (7.5-8) creating a higher soil PH, that the plant is unable to take up Phosphorus that it needs. And a rain barrel in Vegas, where it rained only three times in one year for about a half an hour is a joke. Of course I'm second guessing all of this.

The only thing I could find online was that they will turn when they are over ripe. But it is hard to believe they would become over ripe while so small (between golfball and small baseball size) My first and only good one was a regular medium store bought size. (three times the size of the ones that start to turn)