Eggplant 2025 Started

[karstopography]

Aswad x 2
Matrosik
Beatrice
Rosa Bianca
Nadia

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[GoDawgs]

Wow! And when will you plant them out down there?

[karstopography]

Wow! And when will you plant them out down there?

Probably around the last week of February or 1st of March

[karstopography]

Wow! And when will you plant them out down there?

I could have waited a bit, but the weather is so warm this week it will be easier to get them germinating outside than hoping the house gets warm enough.

[karstopography]

All are up except Matrosik. I’d be okay if it didn’t germinate.

[leftylogan]

I've had newly purchased black beauty seeds on a heat mat with a humidity dome for 2 weeks and there are no signs of life. They're in edge cells so maybe I'll try a center cell.

[karstopography]

Matrosik finally came up, many days after the others. I transplanted one plant each of the other eggplants listed in the OP today. Matrosik will need another week or two. No problem, eggplant season is very long here.

[pepperhead212]

My eggplants grew so fast the last few years, that I planted them a little later last year, and I'll do it 2 days even later, on 4-2, so they won't get ready too soon! I have 5 varieties - 2 repeats, with the Ichiban (growing since the 80s, before I was starting seeds!), and the Matrosik, which was a keeper from last year. The new ones are a Poamoho dark long, and a long green, from the U of HI. I'm hoping that long green is the same as one I had many years ago, a long green variety from seedsofindia.com that was the most heat resistant eggplant I ever grew, but one year, they changed it, which I knew because it flowered later, and the flowers were no longer white, and it just wasn't the same. And no green ones I tried since, were the same, but I keep trying! And one that I doubt anyone else here will be growing - the Dark Pea Eggplant. I grew a pea eggplant several years ago, which grew into a tree! It is also known as the bitter eggplant, and is used in small amounts in Thai curries, much like bitter melons are used in some Indian dishes. I still have some in the freezer, in vacuum sealed bags, in amounts of 20. This pea eggplant says that it grows to 4 or 5 feet - much smaller than the one I grew, which looks better; hopefully it will taste about the same.

[karstopography]

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Nadia, Beatrice and Aswad all blooming now. Rosa Bianca isn’t quite there yet.