Black Beauty

[hedgeapple]

Have always, always liked eggplant and wanted to try growing them. This was the year! Decided to go with a classic to start with and we were not disappointed. 

[hedgeapple]

Mrs. Hedgeapple turned that into a delicious eggplant parmesan. Yum!

[macmex]

Good deal! Our family loves eggplant. It's not hard to save seed from it either. Years ago I had and maintained Listada de Gandia. It's not quite as large as Black Beauty, but was so beautiful I grew it in a flower bed.

[chrysanthemum]

That is a beauty, Hedgeapple. I will add that Mrs. Hedgeapple also makes a lovely presentation with her food.

I’ve grown Black Beauty for two seasons now (last fall, this spring). I’ve gotten lots of little eggplants, none so large as what your photos show, but tasty (unless I let them hang on the vine too long). It’s interesting, though, that one of my plants produces very light colored eggplant that are a little more oval-shaped. I don’t know if it was a stray seed in the packet or just natural variation. It’s pretty, though. I have a harder time figuring out when to harvest those.

[heavyhitterokra]

Nice!

Every time I grow egg plant around here, flea beetles feast on the leaves until they hardly make. They're worth the effort though. Mrs. Hedgeapple makes a mean looking dish.


  There's a big, hand painted sign hanging over the stove in my kitchen that reads, "Kissin' don't last.  Good cookin' do!"
I'd say, "She's a keeper!"

[chrysanthemum]

This is my second season growing Black Beauty (the first was last fall).  I let some of the fruit get too old before harvesting, and my plants are getting a bit tired.  I decided to do a drastic pruning of the plants this morning to let them regrow and see if they’ll produce more abundantly.  (And I have more room to maneuver in the garden now.). I’ve not done this before with eggplant, though I have used the technique successfully with both peppers and tomatoes.  I’ll be interested to see what happens.


Here’s a photo of the one I cut the smallest and the one I left the biggest.

[hedgeapple]

Last night we had a Mediterranean feast which included baba ghanoush. Have I mentioned that I'm into this for the food? 🤣

[macmex]

Is baba ghanoush made with eggplant? Never heard of it before!

[hedgeapple]

Jul 15, 2021 14:31:09 GMT -6 macmex said:

Is baba ghanoush made with eggplant? Never heard of it before!

Yes it is! Delicious!

[chrysanthemum]

Mmmm. We really enjoy Mediterranean food around here. I probably shouldn’t ask, but what was the rest of the feast?

The first year we put in the raised beds, our main growing goals were green onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and parsley, pretty much for the sole purpose of making tabbouleh.

[chrysanthemum]

We love hummus here, too, though we rarely make it with tahini. We had removed that from our diet years ago because of some food sensitivities, and we use either cashews (which can also be pricey, so we try to stock up if we find a sale) or sunflower seeds. Neither has quite the same intensity of flavor, but it works. If you grow your own sunflower seeds, you might want to try a paste of them and see how you like it as a substitute. I’ve never used commercial cashew or sunflower butters, so I can’t recommend them. I’m not sure they would be the same.

[chrysanthemum]

I wanted to mention that my Black Beauty eggplants have really grown out well after that severe cutting back I gave them just over a month ago.  The fruit is still small, but I’ve harvested perhaps eight of them off of several plants.  Here’s a shot off the one that I showed above as the smallest as it had grown out as of yesterday.

[john]

Black Beauty is a time tested all time great and a favorite of mine. I still grow it every year. It can produce some really nice sized eggplant and become a big bush. Eggplant can be a tough one to grow especially early in the season when it gets infested with flea beetles and potato beetles, ( Ron mentions this). I have found that if you are willing to spray for the bugs early in the season and also grow on a soil that has not had nightshades on it recently, you should have a chance of growing some really nice and productive eggplant.

[heavyhitterokra]

My garden is certified organic, so the bugs really have a heyday on my eggplant bushes. They look pretty tattered by the time they put on fruit, but still, they do fairly well. That beats buying them from the grocery store any day.