Producing Ones own Eggplant Seed
Feb 6, 2023 8:15:29 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, rdback, and 2 more like this
Post by macmex on Feb 6, 2023 8:15:29 GMT -6
Historically, I neglect eggplant. I get in a rush to deal with sweet potatoes, tomatoes and peppers and somehow forget all about eggplant, which is a family favorite. Then, when it's time to plant I see the transplants in the box store and often pass on them, as they are so expensive. I think, twice now, Hank has given me some transplants. Last year I think he gave me a half dozen little Black Beauty plants, which I put in one of my plasticulture rows, with drip irrigation. Last year's garden season was really rugged. I don't think I picked more than one or two messes of beans and ZERO tomatoes. Peas fizzled before they could produce, but eggplant chugged along from mid summer until frost, giving us some wonderful eating.
At the end of the season, when I pulled the dead plants I found a number of mature egg plant fruit, which I had missed. Thoughtfully, I stuck them in my pale and took them to the house. It's been over 38 years since I reproduced eggplant seed. Back then I was new at seed saving and struggled with eggplant, probably because I was trying to extract seed from fruit too immature. I thought, "Well, it's worth a try. I'll get around to it..."
Well those immature fruit sat on our counter past Thanksgiving and Christmas! Finally on January 28 I noticed that one of the smaller ones was shriveling and drying. I thought, "Well, it's no or never. I'm just going to get into this and get this mess off the counter. At eating "ripeness" Black Beauty is dark purple, almost black. This is what they look like with ripe for seed. Here's a photo of the largest of these fruit.
I sliced it open and this is what I saw at first glance. The seed was hard, well formed and easy to scrape from the fruit walls.
But it gets better. I was able to pull the fruit apart, exposing whole locules. The seed was EASY to extract!
I used my pen knife blade to scrape the seeds onto a sheet of newspaper, placing it on a shelf in our family room to finish drying. Yesterday I pulled the sheet out and scraped A LOT of eggplant seed into a bottle. I probably have enough seed to grow 200-300 plants (didn't bother to count).
Hank, do you need any seed this year?
Here's a picture of the dried seed on the newspaper.
My seed saving background makes me kind of prefer rare or endangered varieties, but the honest truth is that Black Beauty, though very common place, is a good variety. My family is happy with it.
If you grow eggplant you might consider saving seed. Keep in mind that seed from a hybrid variety probably won't produce exactly the same results as the original hybrid... but it would be eggplant and almost certainly good to eat. Any open pollinated variety will probably produce true to seed. I'm rusty on isolation requirements for eggplant but I would suspect a couple hundred feet between varieties would be sufficient to preserve purity. I don't plan on growing anything else in the near future, so I don't have to worry about cross pollination.
At the end of the season, when I pulled the dead plants I found a number of mature egg plant fruit, which I had missed. Thoughtfully, I stuck them in my pale and took them to the house. It's been over 38 years since I reproduced eggplant seed. Back then I was new at seed saving and struggled with eggplant, probably because I was trying to extract seed from fruit too immature. I thought, "Well, it's worth a try. I'll get around to it..."
Well those immature fruit sat on our counter past Thanksgiving and Christmas! Finally on January 28 I noticed that one of the smaller ones was shriveling and drying. I thought, "Well, it's no or never. I'm just going to get into this and get this mess off the counter. At eating "ripeness" Black Beauty is dark purple, almost black. This is what they look like with ripe for seed. Here's a photo of the largest of these fruit.
I sliced it open and this is what I saw at first glance. The seed was hard, well formed and easy to scrape from the fruit walls.
But it gets better. I was able to pull the fruit apart, exposing whole locules. The seed was EASY to extract!
I used my pen knife blade to scrape the seeds onto a sheet of newspaper, placing it on a shelf in our family room to finish drying. Yesterday I pulled the sheet out and scraped A LOT of eggplant seed into a bottle. I probably have enough seed to grow 200-300 plants (didn't bother to count).
Hank, do you need any seed this year?
Here's a picture of the dried seed on the newspaper.
My seed saving background makes me kind of prefer rare or endangered varieties, but the honest truth is that Black Beauty, though very common place, is a good variety. My family is happy with it.
If you grow eggplant you might consider saving seed. Keep in mind that seed from a hybrid variety probably won't produce exactly the same results as the original hybrid... but it would be eggplant and almost certainly good to eat. Any open pollinated variety will probably produce true to seed. I'm rusty on isolation requirements for eggplant but I would suspect a couple hundred feet between varieties would be sufficient to preserve purity. I don't plan on growing anything else in the near future, so I don't have to worry about cross pollination.
