SAFLAX Gift Set - Organic - Aubergine - Black Beauty - 25 seeds - With gift box, card, label and potting substrate - Solanum melongena

Classic Aubergine variety with wonderful creamy flesh

Mail a growing gift to a friend. Coming with the seeds you chose, a little box (17 x 12 x 2 cm) ready to mail, sticker to label the box, greeting card for your personal notes and germfree and permeable potting substrate based on coconut fiber (dried block) in a stand-up bag. This way your friend will be ready to start right away when your gift arrives.

Aubergine plants grow up to 130 cm tall and produce attractive purple-coloured, star-shaped flowers in late spring that then become fruits during the summer. Black Beauty is one of the most popular, open pollinated variety that goes back to the year 1800. Its oval-shaped fruits are dark and shiny and grow approximately 12 cm long. Its fruit flesh has a pale yellow colour and is smooth and creamy.

In the kitchen: With good care you might be able to harvest the first fruits already from mid July. If the Aubergine is ripe, it shines beautifully and appears to be somewhat soft when pressed with the fingers. Aubergines are indispensable in a moussaka and perfectly suited as roasted vegetable or for preparing fantastic curries. Before the preparation, Aubergines should be salted (one spoon of salt for one fruit would be sufficient) and left to steep for about 30 minutes to draw out the bitter compounds and water. That way, the fruit will absorb less oil during roasting.

Natural Location: The subtropical origin of the Aubergine is East India.

Cultivation: If you want to harvest in the same year, you need to start propagation from February indoors. Place the seeds about 0.5 cm deep into moist coconut substrate or organic herb substrate and cover them with only a little bit of substrate. Cover the seed container with clear film that you provide with a few small holes. That way the substrate doesnt dry out, but also gets some air. Every second or third day, you might want to take the clear film completely off for about 2 hours to avoid mold formation on your potting compost. Place the seed container somewhere bright and warm with a temperature between 20 and 25 Celsius and keep the substrate moist, but not wet. The germination usually takes place after three to five weeks. After germination the coverage can be removed. As soon as the seedlings are about 15 cm tall, they should be pricked out and planted separately into pots. As the outdoor temperature rises, the pots can be moved outside from time to time during the day to allow the plants to slowly adapt to outdoor conditions. After the Ice Saints, the plants can then finally be planted out in the patch or moved to a bigger pot or tub with a capacity of 10 litres.

Place: Pick a sunny and wind-sheltered place for cultivation and give some compost into the planting hole or the pot/tub beforehand, as to provide a good nutrient supply.

Care: Provide the plants with a climbing aid right from the start. During cultivation you should also provide additional organic vegetable fertilizer once or twice, and water the plant sufficiently.

During Winter: Since the Aubergine is rather sensitive to frost, it is usually cultivated as a perennial plant and sowed again next year.