Eggplant: growing from seed outdoors

Eggplant, Solanaceae vegetables, open field cultivation

Eggplants are vegetables that are popular with Russian farmers. Many delicious dishes can be prepared from eggplants. Therefore, many are trying to grow eggplants in their garden. You can learn how to do this correctly from the article.

Eggplant is a vegetable from the nightshade family. Surprisingly, eggplant is the closest relative of tomatoes. For a long time, both vegetables were considered poisonous and unsuitable for food. Eggplant came to Russia in the 17th century and was able to add variety to the national cuisine. Since then, it has been successfully cultivated to this day. Many varieties have been bred, the fruits of which are different from the usual dark purple. Eggplant varieties of unusual shapes and colors can be grown from seeds.

The content of the article
Variety of eggplant varieties
Sowing seeds for seedlings
Transplanting eggplants into the ground
Eggplant care
Harvesting and storage

Variety of eggplant varieties
Before you start growing, you need to decide which kind of eggplant to buy. There are varieties with elongated fruits, spherical, ovoid. The color of the fruits, depending on the variety, can also differ, in addition to the usual purple, there are white, pink and even orange eggplants. Oval eggplants are the most popular and are often used in cooking. If you decide to grow white eggplants, then it is better to choose early maturing varieties that are most resistant to adverse conditions and give a good harvest.

Depending on the variety, the eggplant bush can grow from 40 to 150 cm in height. The plant has large, slightly rough green leaves with a purple tint.

Eggplant: sowing seeds for seedlings
It is worth starting to grow eggplants by planting seeds for seedlings. This is a better option than planting seeds outdoors. This should be done approximately in the last days of February or early March. The growing season for eggplants is longer than that of tomatoes and peppers. Early maturing eggplant varieties take 100 to 130 days for the fruits to ripen. For late varieties, this period ranges from 130 to 180 days.

After choosing an eggplant variety, you need to select seeds for planting. Eggplant is not an easy vegetable, it is not enough just to plant seeds in the ground, water and wait for shoots to appear. If you do this, you can be bitterly disappointed. It is impossible to get healthy, strong seedlings in this way, which will give many fruits.

To get high-quality seedlings and subsequently a good harvest, you need to follow some rules. First, you need to pay attention to the expiration date of the seeds. Eggplant seeds do not lose their viability for four years, but for planting it is worth choosing seeds that are not more than two years old. They have the best germination rate. If hybrids are purchased, then the choice should be stopped at the first generation. Before planting, about a week, the seeds need to be hardened. It will take seven days. Hardening takes place quite simply: during the day, the seeds are placed in some warm place, and then they are put in the refrigerator for the whole night. In order to disinfect the seeds, they can be treated with hydrogen peroxide before planting. Add 3 ml of peroxide to 100 ml of water, heat the resulting solution to 40 degrees, then lower the seeds into it for 10 minutes. Also, for disinfection, you can soak the seeds for 30 minutes in a very weak solution of potassium permanganate. You can choose any of these options. Seeds collected by yourself must be awakened.To do this, the seeds are wrapped in cheesecloth and kept in hot water for about five minutes. You can increase the germination of seeds by sprinkling them with a weak solution of trace elements. This will enrich the seeds with nutrients. You can buy seeds that have already been processed. They have a special shell.

It is necessary to plant seeds in specially prepared soil. You can buy ready-made soil, or you can prepare it yourself. Self-preparation of the soil is not as difficult as it might seem. By adding 3 parts of peat, 3 parts of black soil and one part of compost and sand to the soil, you can get the soil that is ideal for eggplant. For one piece, you can take any measure, for example, a bucket or other container. Chernozem acts as the basis of the soil, peat gives it lightness, compost acts as a nutrient, sand makes the soil loose and provides drainage. The composition of the soil can be changed, but we must not forget that the soil for eggplants must be nutritious, fine-grained and have good drainage. Eggplants like neutral to slightly acidic soil. The soil must be prepared in the fall and kept all winter on the balcony or on the street so that it freezes thoroughly. This is done to prevent disease.

To prevent the fungus from infecting the seedlings, the soil must be well disinfected and hardened. Eggplants really do not like transplants, so they need to be planted immediately in that container, from which they will then go to open ground. The best option is to plant the seeds in separate containers or cups with drainage holes made. So they can be transplanted without disturbing the roots. Whichever container is chosen for planting eggplants, it should not allow water to stagnate from raw materials that do not emit toxic substances, and should allow easy, without disturbing the roots, to extract the plant for transplantation. The containers must be filled with soil and placed on pallets. You can plant eggplants in peat cassettes and peat tablets. If the cassettes are small, then the plants can shade each other, which will adversely affect their development. To avoid this, they need to be planted in a checkerboard pattern.

The seed needs to be planted 1.5-2 cm in the ground, poured with water, and then covered with a film, this creates a greenhouse effect and maintains the temperature. Also, the film does not allow moisture to evaporate and the soil to dry out. When the seeds are not planted in separate cups, there should be a distance of at least 10 cm between them. It will take 10-12 days for the seeds to germinate. As soon as the first shoots appear, the film will no longer be needed, it must be removed, and the container with the shoots should be moved to the light. A cool windowsill is ideal, where the seedlings can develop a good root system before starting to grow.

In order for the seedlings to develop well, they must have enough sunlight, they must be well watered. If the seedlings experience a lack of light, they will ache and begin to stretch strongly, so if there is not enough light, you need to install additional lighting. Do not forget about feeding. A couple of top dressings while growing the seedlings will be enough to stimulate crop growth. The first feeding is done with fertilizers containing a large amount of phosphorus. You can water young plants from a spray bottle, making sure that no water gets on the leaves, especially in sunny weather. This can cause burns. You can also water the seedlings from a watering can or some container.

After the first 3-4 leaves have appeared on the plants, the seedlings, if they are not planted in separate cups, need to be planted. Before transplanting, it needs to be watered properly.

Transplanting eggplants into the ground
Transplanting eggplants into open ground occurs when the plants are approximately 70 days old. This age is most favorable for transplantation.Plants at the time of transplantation already have 6-8 leaves, their height reaches 20-25 cm. First of all, you need to look at the climate and weather conditions of your region. At the time of transplantation, the ground should be warmed up to +18, the temperature should not go below +15. The air temperature should be kept around +20. If the soil temperature is lower, the eggplant will grow noticeably slower.

Eggplants are extremely thermophilic. If the transplant time falls on bad weather and cold weather, you need to wait. It is better to insure yourself and overexpose the seedlings. If suddenly the seedlings are outgrown, you need to take action. The air temperature in the room should be reduced, watering the plants should be reduced, but the soil should not be allowed to dry completely.

In order for the plants to survive the transplant better, they need to be hardened. This way they will experience less stress during the transplant. For this, the plants are taken out to the balcony and placed in direct sunlight. At first, the time spent on the balcony should be several minutes, by the end of hardening, you can leave the seedlings on the balcony for two hours, but no more. It will take a week to harden the plants.

In each well, where the eggplant will be transplanted, you need to add about 50-100 grams of humus and a spoonful of wood ash, then pour abundantly with 1% potassium permanganate solution. It is best to transplant in the evening. Eggplants do not tolerate transplanting quite well, they may need more than two weeks to adapt to a new place. During this period, their growth slows down very much.

Plants need to be planted at a distance of about 40 cm from each other and 50-60 cm between rows. Eggplants need a lot of space. The place should be very sunny and well sheltered from the wind. It is not recommended to plant eggplants in the same place for two years in a row, it is also not recommended to plant them after tomatoes and potatoes. Eggplants get along well with pepper, these plants can be planted alternately.

Eggplant care
Eggplants need constant care, which includes watering, loosening, and weeding. In general, caring is not much different from caring for other plants. For the prevention of fungal diseases, plants and soil must be treated with fungicidal preparations. After transplanting, you need to feed the eggplants 3-4 times during the summer with phosphorus, potash and organic fertilizers. This will help the plants prepare for active fruiting. Tall eggplant varieties require removal of stepchildren. It is easier to care for the undersized in this regard, as soon as lateral shoots are formed, 2-3 of the strongest are left, the rest are removed. All diseased fruits and leaves must be removed from the bushes regularly. If during flowering flowers are formed not one by one, but whole ovaries of several pieces, only one flower should be left in this ovary, the rest should be removed, otherwise the fruits will be very small.

There are many diseases that can affect eggplant. The most common diseases of these plants are late blight, black leg and sclerotinosis. Late blight affects primarily the leaves of plants - spots of brown or red color begin to appear on them. Gradually, the disease begins to spread and spreads to the stems and fruits. After the harvest is harvested, you need to remove and burn all the tops, and treat the garden with fungicides. The black leg affects the stem at the very base. The plant no longer has enough food. The affected area darkens over time and begins to rot, leading to the death of the plant. This disease is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil. For its prevention, it is important to process the soil before planting plants. If the fungus appears, then the affected plants must be removed, and the places where they were located should be watered with a solution of potassium permanganate, coal and ash. Sclerotinosis is also caused by a fungus that lives in the soil. It affects the roots, stems, leaves and fruits of the plant. The disease manifests itself in the form of rotting spots.The affected areas of the plant must be removed immediately and treated with ash and fungicides.

Harvesting and storage
2-4 weeks before the onset of the first frost, all flowers from the eggplants must be removed, so all the energy of the plants will be directed to the ripening of already formed fruits. The peel on ripe fruits becomes bright, characteristic of its variety, color, the pulp of the fruit becomes elastic. Seeds of ripe fruits are white. If the fruit is harvested too early, it will not be possible to eat it. Do not hope that after lying down for a while, they will ripen like peppers or tomatoes, this will not happen, the eggplants will simply fade. Overriding of fruits also does not represent anything good, their flesh will begin to taste bitter, and the skin will become hard, the fruits will not taste good. Ripe eggplants should be cut with pruning shears or scissors, not just plucked from the bush.

Eggplant is a vegetable that is not intended for long-term storage. The shelf life of eggplants is only 2-3 months. Late varieties of eggplant are more suitable for storage than earlier varieties. If a lot of fruits are harvested, it is better to make various blanks out of them. Eggplants are placed in straw boxes and stored in a cool, dark place. A basement is good for storing eggplants. You can store eggplants in the refrigerator, in an open plastic bag. You can wrap them in paper or newspaper. It is important that the eggplants in the refrigerator do not come into contact with other vegetables, this can trigger the process of rotting. If the eggplants are stored in boxes, then you can sprinkle them with sand, it will prevent moisture evaporation, and the vegetables will remain juicy for a long time. Whichever storage method is chosen, eggplants should not be washed before storage. If the fruits are dirty, you can wipe them with a napkin. Do not store eggplants in the sun or in a place where there is a lot of light, as the eggplants will deteriorate very quickly. The chemical composition of eggplants is such that they can become unhealthy if stored in the sun. If you decide to freeze the eggplants, then blanch them before freezing.