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They began to cultivate eggplants in India, Central Asia, the climate is considered too cold for this southern culture. But, despite the fact that eggplants were brought to Our Country only at the end of the nineteenth century, they are already grown everywhere with great success, even summer residents from Siberia can boast of a good harvest of blue ones.
How to grow eggplant in the temperate climate of the middle lane will be discussed in this article. Particular attention should be paid to transplanting eggplant seedlings, since it is at this stage that inexperienced gardeners “lose” a large number of seedlings.
What is special about eggplant
It is believed that growing eggplant in a summer cottage, or even in a greenhouse, is somewhat more difficult than coping with other crops, such as cucumbers, tomatoes and bell peppers.
There are a number of reasons for this:
- For many plants, the optimum soil temperature is 12 degrees. Whereas eggplants need land warmed up to +18 Celsius for normal development.
- No less important is the air temperature day and night. First, there should not be sharp jumps in daily temperature. Secondly, eggplants like a warmer climate; the range from +18 to +26 degrees is optimal for them.
- Frosts are not at all acceptable for eggplant – the plants will simply die.
- When the temperature drops to +13 degrees, eggplant bushes drop ovaries, flowers and leaves.
- It is much more reliable to grow eggplants in greenhouses, or at least use temporary film shelters for fragile seedlings.
- Eggplant does not like shade, this plant needs the maximum amount of sunlight.
- Plantings should not be thickened, and eggplants should not be planted near other tall plants or fences, hedges – the culture needs space and air, the leaves should be well ventilated.
An important factor is the long growing season of eggplant. If in warm countries this crop can develop normally in the ground and be grown from seeds, then in the temperate climate of Our Country, eggplants are planted only in seedlings, giving preference to greenhouse plantings.
How to grow eggplant
So, in order to grow eggplants in Our Country, you will have to start preparing seedlings. The first thing to do is calculate the sowing time for the seeds. To do this, you need to know the period of fruit ripening, this information is easy to find on the packaging with seed material.
The second factor is that seedlings are planted in the ground or in a greenhouse, usually at the age of 70-75 days.
Considering that in most regions of the country the land in the beds warms up to the required 18 degrees only by the end of May – the beginning of June, it is possible to determine the optimal date for sowing eggplant seeds – the end of February – the beginning of March.
If the cottage or garden is located in a cold region, where stable temperatures are rare, it is better not to take risks and plant eggplants in a greenhouse.
This can be a heated capital structure, a glass, film or polycarbonate greenhouse heated by sunlight, or at least a temporary shelter made of dense polyethylene or special agrofibre.
Having decided on the landing method, you can proceed to the next step.
Preparing a place for eggplant seedlings
This step largely depends on where the seedlings will be planted. If this is a greenhouse, the soil in it begins to be prepared about three weeks before the proposed planting of eggplants. Open ground areas need to be prepared for the “reception” of eggplants since autumn.
First of all, choose a suitable site. This should be the place:
- constantly illuminated by the sun;
- protected from drafts and strong winds;
- located on a hill or on level ground;
- with light, fertile soil;
- on which greens, potatoes, beets, carrots, beans or peas grew in the current season.
It is clear that not all summer cottages in Our Country are located on loamy soils. It’s not scary – the composition of the soil can be “corrected” taking into account the requirements of eggplant:
- rotted sawdust, peat or rotten manure will help to increase the moisture capacity of the soil (these additives are added at the rate of two buckets per square meter of land);
- too dense clay soils are loosened with half-rotted sawdust, coarse-grained river sand, peat or rotten compost;
- soils with a sandy composition are diluted with peat, compost, sawdust;
- the predominance of peat in the ground can be “softened” with soddy soil and compost.
When the soil on the site is “balanced”, and its composition is close to ideal, you can start fertilizing. In this capacity, urea, wood ash, superphosphate or potassium sulfate are used. In the required amount, nutrients are introduced into the soil, after which the site is dug up by at least 30 cm.
In the spring, best after rain, when the ground is damp, the site is dug up again and all weeds, roots and excess debris are removed.
For eggplant seedlings, you need to make fairly high beds – a height of about 30 cm is considered optimal. The distance between rows should be at least 90-100 cm. look after.
Preparing eggplant seedlings
Before sowing seedlings, you must select the seed. The best eggplant seeds are those that are two to three years old. It is better not to use last year’s seeds, they give poor germination, moreover, the germination time of such seeds is twice as long as, for example, two-year-old seeds.
Selected eggplant seeds need to be germinated. To do this, it is better to take cotton wool or cosmetic cotton pads. It is not recommended to use gauze, as delicate sprouts can get stuck and damaged in its “cells”.
Eggplant seeds are laid out on a cotton pad, which is well moistened with warm water. It is best to use rain or melt water for these purposes – this will speed up the process of “pecking” the sprouts.
Cotton pads should be constantly wet, every day they need to be additionally moistened. After 5-6 days, eggplant seeds should swell, resulting in fragile sprouts.
Seeds are collected and placed for several hours in a container with a solution of manganese or in a thermos with well-hot, but not boiling, water. This step contributes to the disinfection of the seed, which will later help the seedlings resist diseases.
Now is the time to prepare containers and soil for seedlings. At this stage, it is necessary to take into account the extreme fragility of the eggplant root system – these plants really do not like transplantation and do not tolerate it well. To minimize stress for eggplants, it is recommended to sow their seeds immediately in individual containers. However, this is not always convenient, for example, when there will be a lot of seedlings, or the gardener has not yet had time to purchase small containers.
Peat cups are considered the best container for blue seedlings. These containers are 70% peat, which is always recommended to be added to the soil for this crop. The remaining 30% is cardboard, which also easily decomposes in the soil in 30 days, without causing any harm to its composition.
The soil for eggplant seedlings should be like this:
- compost, sand and sod land;
- peat, purchased mixture for seedlings, sand;
- manure, sod land, compost;
- peat, compost.
Any of these compounds is great for growing eggplant seedlings. About two-thirds of the container is filled with soil, a small depression is made and watered with warm water.
A seed is placed in each recess and sprinkled with a thin layer of soil. No need to compact the soil in the cup, the seeds must have access to oxygen. The containers are covered with glass or polyethylene and placed in a warm room, the temperature in which is constantly at the level of 25-26 degrees.
After half of the seedlings appear, the film or glass must be removed, otherwise the seedlings will rot and deteriorate. All seeds should germinate no later than two weeks after planting.
Transplanting eggplant seedlings
If picking seedlings cannot be avoided (for example, the weather fails, there is no stable heat for a long time, and the seedlings are already “outgrowing” the capacity), then this should be done very carefully.
A few hours before picking, seedlings are abundantly watered with water. It is necessary to transfer eggplant seedlings with an earthen clod, trying not to damage the stem and roots of the seedlings. The dived blue ones should take root in a new place, it is better not to water them for about 5-7 days. But after this period, it is recommended to feed the seedlings with organic or mineral fertilizer and more frequent watering.
Before planting in a greenhouse or open ground, seedlings must be hardened off. To do this, eggplants are taken out into the open air for several hours every day. The time of “walking” seedlings should increase gradually – from 10 minutes to 2-3 hours. Seedlings are placed on the leeward side where the sun shines.
Transferring eggplant seedlings to the ground
On the day of transplantation, beds are prepared for the blue ones. These should be high ridges with wide passages between them. The scheme for planting eggplant seedlings is as follows – 40-45×90-100 cm, that is, there should be no more than three plants on each square meter of land.
Transplanting eggplant seedlings usually occurs at the beginning of summer, when the weather returns to normal. On prepared beds, deepenings are made about 15-20 cm deep.
Wells for seedlings are poured with water, 1-3 liters of warm water are poured into each of them. You need to transfer seedlings with a clod of earth, or better, along with a disposable peat cup. The stem is always deepened more than it was deepened before. It is better to cover the stem of the seedling with earth to the level of the lower leaves.
If the seedlings are transferred to the greenhouse, all the ground between the bushes must be moistened with a spray gun – eggplants love high humidity.
After 10 days, the transplanted eggplant must be fertilized, for this you can use any fertilizer (mineral or organic) or their complex.
In general, blue ones need to be fertilized often: after the second, fifth, seventh and tenth leaf (during the development of seedlings) and three more times during flowering, ovary formation and fruit ripening.
Features of eggplant care
We can say that eggplant is not a vegetable for every summer resident. Only those who can pay enough attention to their garden can count on the harvest of this whimsical and heat-loving plant.
After the seedlings are planted on the beds, the gardener needs to regularly:
- Water eggplants, as they love moisture.
- Help pollinate flowers if the natural conditions in the greenhouse or on the site are not enough for this.
- Fertilize seedlings several times a season.
- Form plants by pinching the top and side shoots, picking off extra flowers, deformed fruits, removing dried or infected leaves.
- In time to pick eggplants in the stage of technical maturity. If you wait for the full ripening of the fruit, you can significantly reduce the overall yield of the bush.
- Monitor the condition of the leaves and fruits, as the blue ones are a “tidbit” for many insects and diseases. If necessary, spray the bushes with special solutions.
- Loosen the beds at least five times during the summer, trying not to damage the roots located close to the surface.
Transplanting eggplant seedlings is more difficult than doing the same procedure with seedlings of other plants. This culture is very demanding and capricious, all stages of growing blue ones require maximum return from the gardener. Therefore, eggplants are not suitable for those summer residents who do not have the time or opportunity to pay attention to their garden every day.
