Eggplants - they come in a variety of sizes and flavors
And are a delight to grow in your garden
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so let's look at our first eggplant variety for today
this variety is called shooting stars
and this is a relatively new variety
of eggplant that was introduced by
Burpee seeds and is now commonly available in most of the garden stores
So eggplants can be started eight to 10 weeks before
the last frost date in your area this gives you a head start into the growing season
I am using a ready to use mix here the seeds
some labels and a Sharpie to
write down what you just sowed
And I've got some questions from our viewers regarding
how deep to sow the seeds so I'm gonna show you
a close up of what I do to sow my seeds
so the thumb rule is that you need to sow the seeds
as deep as the size of the seed itself
so your sow 1 seed in
each of the compartments that you will be starting your plants in
Since you will be transplanting each one separately
your do not need to sow two seeds
if you want you can
sow two seeds but then you will need to thin out
and leave the strongest plant that you will transplant
once this is done you can lightly cover your seeds
you can now set your seeds inside a green house
or any other germination kit you use for starting your seeds
it takes about 10 days for the seeds to germinate
and then once they grow to about
6 inches or so you can transplant them into bigger containers
so this container that you see here as a 16 inch wide container
and holds about seven to eight gallons of soil
now although this is a little overkill for eggplants
I recommend that you use this
Or you could use a smaller container to like this
ten-inch container which is about
three to four gallons
Both these container sizes are great to grow your eggplants
Now this plant that you see here is the shooting stars eggplant again
And I was a little late in planting this eggplant for the season
So this was my first eggplant on this plant
and it looked pretty good
it had a little bit of a brown spot below
which I initially thought was something like blossom end rot
but that was not the case this was a perfectly healthy eggplant
and I guess the eggplant just grew that way
and had a brown bottom
As the season went by
I was getting a lot more eggplants from this plant
And you can see that the shooting stars
is a great eggplant variety to grow
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This next eggplant variety
was actually a little bit of a surprising variety to me
because it was given to me by one of my friends
and all that was labeled on the seed packet was "Brinjal"
which is actually another name for eggplant
and this is a pretty looking eggplant and I'm not sure what variety this is
this probably looks like
Rosa Bianca or Purple Ball
And you can see a side by side comparison here
but I'm not really sure what variety the eggplant on the left is
if you have any ideas please let me know put in your comments and
I'll be more than happy to know
in any case this was a prolific eggplant variety
and I was able to get a lot of harvests from this plant
right throughout the season
And eggplants are heavy feeders
so if you're liquid fertilizer like seaweed
or fish fertilizer make sure you feed your plants at least every two weeks
They also love a little bit of Epsom salt throughout the growing season
So here you can see some of the eggplant varieties
the ones on the top are the Udalampet variety
which I will be discussing in the next section of the video
And you can also see the green eggplant, the shooting stars
As well as the Brinjal variety of eggplant
which I'm not sure which variety that is
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So if you live in an area that is warm throughout the year
You can leave your eggplants in the ground on in the container
Also called as overwintering
So that you get a really good head start into the growing season
Basically you have full grown eggplants
Even before your season begins
That's a great way to start your plant
And you can see this eggplant that that I had over wintered
At the beginning of the spring season
It was already producing these huge eggplants
Now if you start your eggplants in Spring
They usually start producing by summer
So by overwintering eggplants I was able to
Harvest my eggplants right in the beginning of spring
This is again the shooting stars variety of eggplant
And it does a little bit of slug damage on one of them
But overall very healthy eggplants
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So I bought the seeds of this Udalampet variety of eggplant
on Amazon
And this was a very interesting eggplant variety to grow
I think it's named after a city in India and the eggplant that it produces are
very similar to the shooting stars right variety however
They are a little bit smaller in size
Now this is just my personal opinion, but
The smaller sized eggplant plants like this variety
As well as the shooting stars
Are much more flavorful
Than the large varieties like black beauty
I think it's because they have less water in them
They tend to be more flavorful when
cooked and I just like the eggplants that are smaller in size
You can see it this Udalampet variety of eggplant here
And they look pretty good and they taste absolutely delicious
So if you're wanting to try a new eggplant variety
Do try out this variety!
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Now this eggplant variety is one that I had covered in a lot of detail in
one of my previous videos
And when it ripens it turns into this yellow eggplant
which is really interesting
The green or this yellow eggplant
also are very creamy and delicious varieties
That you must try to grow in your garden
So I hope this video inspires you to try out
new eggplant varieties in your garden
And if you've already been growing different eggplant varieties
Do let me know, put in your comments so that
I know what kind of varieties my YouTube viewers are growing
it would be a pleasure to know your experiences
And which varieties of eggplants do you like
Which ones do you find delicious?
Which ones do you find easy to grow?
And I'll see you again soon
Happy Gardening!
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