TOP tips on how to get an eggplant harvest

How to properly grow eggplants in the garden

Eggplants in the garden belong to the nightshade family., Whose height is not less than 35 cm, blooms from July to September. If they are grown correctly, then the harvest can be very large. You can cook anything from eggplant. Make summer salads, snacks and winter preparations. There are a lot of recipes using eggplant.

How to plant and care for eggplants

There are a lot of them, the most popular for growing in the garden: "King of the North" is an early, frost-resistant variety. Bibo is super early and not whimsical. "Black beauties" does not stand up to frost. "Albatross" are fleshy. "Diamond»Produces large fruits. "Marzipan" is pear-shaped with excellent taste. "Vakula" is not whimsical and can withstand temperature fluctuations.

It is better to prepare the soil for eggplant in the fall and apply fertilizers such as manure to it. And weed out the weeds. Eggplant seeds are small, flat, and brown in color. You can buy them in the store, or assemble them yourself. If you collect them yourself, then this should be done at the beginning of autumn, they should be brown. Seedlings must be kept at home before planting in the soil, gradually hardening it.

Before planting seeds for seedlings, you need 20 minutes in a warm solution of potassium permanganate. Then rinse under running water. After that, you need to take a small container with earth, water it with water, make grooves no more than 1.5 cm deep and sow seeds. Cover with foil and put in a warm place, do not forget to regularly spray the ground from a spray bottle .. When the first shoots appear, you need to remove the foil and put the container on the windowsill in the sun, regularly watering, as eggplants like a lot of moisture. When the seedlings grow up to 5-7 cm, you can plant the eggplants in separate cups, in which they will spend time before planting in the open ground. Two weeks before disembarkation, they begin to harden, gradually lowering the temperature. Seedlings are planted outside when the seedlings are at least 15 cm long and have at least five leaves. And they should be planted in the already heated ground after May 20. For this, the earth must be well shed with water, preferably warm. Plant each seedling at least 20 cm apart. And because eggplants are heat-loving plants, arcs should be installed above them and covered with a film or covering material at night. Two weeks after planting in the ground, the plants grow very slowly. But after two weeks, if you regularly water the plant and loosen the ground, the seedling grows very quickly.

Eggplant in the garden: How to water seedlings

It is better to water the seedlings in the evening with warm water. It is only necessary to feed the plants with fertilizer 3 - 4 times per season. Removing weeds in time is also one of the main tasks, because they can easily drown out the plants. And if you huddle the plants, the roots will be more powerful, and this helps to increase the yield. Each variety has its own ripening period. Therefore, unripe fruits cannot be picked, they will simply be bitter. How to understand that the fruit is fully ripe? It becomes glossy. This is about a month and a half after the seedling has bloomed. If your eggplant is brown, then it is definitely overripe, and already tasteless. You can harvest in July when the fruit is at least 10 cm, the fruit is color depending on the variety and glossy. You need to cut off the fruits either with a pruner or with a sharp knife. With the arrival of cold weather, you can transplant the eggplant bush into the greenhouse and have time to harvest another 2 - 3 times.If you cut the crop correctly without damaging the calyx and stalk at the end of the fruit, then the eggplant can be kept fresh in the refrigerator or cellar for up to two months.

In the garden, it is better to plant eggplants in a sunny place, where there is no cold wind and drafts.