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These aubergine plants were sown February I actually bought them as plug plants because the nursery I buy them from
Grafted them they graft the black pearl
f1 variety
onto root stocks of
Not-so-nice genus but with more vigorous roots basically so it helps them to grow very strongly
This is end of July now in the greenhouse
Homemakers 51 degrees north the cool temperate oceanic climate. So to grow our genes we need to get everything right?
They need a lot of warmth. So the greenhouse is even more effective actually than the poly tar
because it keeps a little bit of extra warmth at night particularly and
The fact that they grafted means they grow more strongly this variety black pearl is just I found so amazing
It has a very nice proportion of fruit to leave a lot of the older varieties
I found you can get lovely big bushy plants and not many fruit
Whereas these we've already I've already picked about a kilo of aubergines off each plant. There's six plants here and
They're spaced just under 2 feet 20 inches apart, maybe 50 centimeters
mulch so no dig and in fact
it's fascinating doing that and I could feel the the
Sponginess of it and how if I just go down a little bit you can see all the aubergine roots
In the surface, and that's why I like watering
we we don't have drip lines, but we order the whole surface with a hose by hand and
To make as much noise as possible and that encourages soil life and enables the roots to feed out
horizontally a lot into the moist surface and then the way I'm training these which shown to me actually by
Felix who worked here three years ago. He runs a very successful. No dig market garden in Germany now in vine home and
when he was here, he said how they do it in Germany where they train to stems off each plant and
I've never even trained my own genes before like this and so it was it's been a bit of a revelation and it shows how
It can be very worthwhile to make that little bit of extra effort to do the the side shooting and the training up
Same as with smartest. There's
Strings buried in the planting holes. We make a hole and put
The root ball in this case on top of two strings for the tomatoes
It's one string though be jeans too because then when the aubergine is about this tall
say 30 centimeters you can offer si an a strong growing side shoot near the main leader and
You allow that one to grow and that becomes a second leader
so the plant has divided there with two stems one was the original stem one was the side shoot at the time they were
On this plant, they're pretty equal now in growth and all the other side shoots. I'm taking out. So I
Can't see I need to do it. That's it
Because I owe this one because I'm quite on top of the side shooting but that's an example of an aubergine side
Shoot and there's one there. They do pop out in fact
the
Plants are worth doing a bit of a watch so that that's a no busy size you you know
If you left that like with a tomato it would become another stem
we only want to stones and so going up the stems just
gently
not to have firmly because they they grow much more slowly than tomatoes and
Basically, so an earlier than the tomatoes tomatoes are twice the height in the growing season here
They just about get up to the glass, which is ideal
and we just I don't thin the fruit at all they kind of do that so selectively if you wanted really
Really big fat ones then maybe not leave all the fruits, but I'm happy to have you know
quite a few more medium ones like that as well and
All that needs doing now, you know everything's in place from here
It's just regular side shooting gentle twisting around the string and harvesting the fruits. Just deciding when to harvest can be tricky
Like how do you know when an aubergine is really, right?
Fact this is one thing. This one hasn't really got fat yet, but it does feel pretty hard and
That can be a sign actually that feels pretty hard as well
I would say I think probably most of these are quite mature and
Would be good to pick whereas that one is not ready yet
So I'll let that one grow for sure, but they've done a heavy cropping in the first instance
I'll actually do one little thing here if I'd get my knife and cut one. I'll cut it open to show you I
Just have a suspicion that we might see some seeds in here
Actually not too many, but that
that's where the seeds start to develop and if you leave your openings a
Long time on a plant they you see those seeds more
Pronounced like little brown seeds and that's when the fruit can get a little bit bitter not majorly
But that's certainly that's actually a bit less matured and I thought it might be it is
Definitely difficult to judge the maturity of an aubergine
I find there's a bit of practice and if you get them like that, that'll be a lovely tender one really good to eat
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