A Question for Kitchen Gardeners and Cooks:What Kind(s) of Eggplant Do You Like To Grow and/or Eat?

No Respect for Raised Beds—Topaz with Some Volunteer Bachelor's Buttons Last May

I'm working on a cookbook all about making the most of your seasonal bounty no matter where it comes from, and I would love your input. I'll be posting random questions here every few days, and all comments are greatly appreciated.

Is it just me, or are eggplants some of the most beautiful vegetables in the garden? I love the look of 'plain old' Black Beauties, but of course there are dozens of other varieties you can grow. Eggplants come in all shapes and sizes—and quite a few colors, too.

The first year I gardened in Missouri I had a bumper crop of eggplant, which is what happens when two dozen plants (what was I thinking?) decide to flourish. The only trouble I had was with hungry flea beetles turning the leaves of the young plants into lace, but although they looked terrible they survived just fine.

I've really slacked off on my eggplant production since then, though. Joe doesn't care for eggplant, and they simply aren't a real priority for me. This year, however, I'm jumping back on the eggplant bandwagon big time, and am going to try growing some interesting heirloom varieties from seed (which I will start in containers and then transplant into the garden once the soil warms up and we're well past our frost date), including these (descriptions from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog):

Pandora Striped Rose
A great market variety, teardrop-shaped fruit are a lovely lilac-rose color with thin white stripes. Strong, thornless plants give heavy yields; tender and delicious. A real eye catcher.

Turkish Orange
This beautiful heirloom comes from Turkey. The 3" round fruit are best cooked when they are green to light orange. This variety has very sweet and flavorful flesh. It imparts a strong, rich flavor to any dish. The small plants yield well. This variety is great for ethnic markets. Very ornamental looking.

Listada De Gandia
One of the most popular heirloom types, this one has 7"-long fruit that are white, with lovely bright purple stripes. They are so beautiful and have fabulous flavor, with sweet, tender flesh. This excellent variety hails from Spain, a country that is renowned for fine food.

So what are your favorite varieties of eggplant to grown and/or eat? And what do you do with bounty left on the vine that's a little past its prime? Cook, curse, compost?

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the inquiring foodie farm blog where it's quickly becoming obvious that I won't always have appropriate pictures to go with my questions, so when that happens I'll simply post random garden photos (rather than no photos) from my files, like this one of the annoying but cute Topaz relaxing in a raised bed as if she owns it.

Garden Journal Entry 6/2/08: Planting Tomatoes Later Is Better than Never (I Think)

Eight Tomato Plants (No, Really, they're in there)

Realization of the Day:
It's the second of June and I have a pathetic total of 9 tomato plants in the ground - which is more than double yesterday's count of four. Most years I have at least 40 or 50 - sometimes as many as 80.

Oh yeah, and they're tomato plants I broke down and bought, too - not started from the couple of dozen packets of heirloom seeds still safely sitting in my office.

How did this happen? I have no idea. I'm still trying to figure out how it got to be June already. I think it has something to do with the concurrence of lambing season and seed starting season each year. While my foodie mom was visiting the farm back in April (because she wanted to be here during lambing season), the running joke was that at 10pm when we staggered back to The Shack from the barn I would say brightly, "So are you ready to go out and work in the garden now?" Instead we poured ourselves glasses of wine, scrounged up something to eat, and collapsed into bed.

Back on February 14th I was flailing around trying to figure out what I could direct seed (and get to germinate) in the greenhouse that wouldn't either a) freeze to death in the coming months (basil, zinnias, bush beans) or b) suffer from heatstroke when the temps shoot up into the 90s in there like they do every time the sun comes out (lettuce, broccoli, kohlrabi, spinach). I thought about bunching onions (which I buy every year and never plant - it's like a tradition), but settled on my beloved Swiss chard instead. It's thriving, but what I really should have been doing back then was starting tomato and pepper seeds in containers. At the time, though, the thought of 2+ months of dealing with growing stuff indoors under lights seemed like a total pain. Yes, sometimes I can really be that stupid lazy.


Mr. Midnight Inspects My Work

This morning I took a break from planting to see if the guys working on our new building (the hardwood floor is looking great!) were interested in taking home some Jerusalem artichoke plants (more about growing these soon, I hope). Our contractor, who puts in a large garden every year, happily took me up on my offer even though he had no idea what Jerusalem artichokes were. His two helpers politely declined.

"I only grow tomatoes and green onions," one of them told me.

"I have plenty of green onions," I said. "But I'm really behind with my tomato plants." They nodded understandingly. "In fact," I sheepishly admitted, "I'm in the middle of planting some right now."

"Oh," they said in unison. "That is late." Being polite types, they left it at that, though I have a feeling as soon as I was out of earshot they probably had a little more to say.

In an attempt to look at this embarrassing and depressing tomato plant situation in a more positive light, I've been telling myself that since the weather is already hotter than hell and humid beyond belief nice and warm, my tomato plants will probably be big and tall in no time. The one I planted last week has already grown a couple of inches and is putting on new leaves. None of that chilly April and May stunted growth for these babies.

This will be an interesting experiment, though I really hope I'll never break this late planting record. I'm not a fan of Missouri summers by any stretch of the imagination (in fact I've already started counting down the months until fall), but I can't help hoping that our first frost arrives a little late this year.

The best thing about all is that in the future I'll always be able to console myself by saying, "Sure I'm behind with the tomatoes this year, but it's nothing like what happened back in 2008!"

And of course if you happen to be behind on your own tomato planting progress, my situation should make you feel a whole lot better - because it can't possibly be as pitiful as mine. At least I hope not.

Tomato plants already in the ground:
1 Black Cherry
4 Celebrity
4 Cherry (that's all the sign at the feed store said, but in my experience you can't go wrong with cherry tomato plants of any kind)

Next on the planting list:
27 more tomato plants (purchased)
20 Golden Bell pepper plants (purchased)
2 heirloom eggplant plants (purchased on a whim)
seeds to start: lemon cucumbers, various summer squash, more beans, several types of basil, parsley, & some other stuff

What, you thought I was only behind with tomatoes? Oh, I wish.

So what kind of tomatoes are you growing this year? Did you start your own seeds? Buy plants? Just get everything in the ground? Don't forget to tell us where you're located.

Related posts:
Growing Kellogg's Breakast Tomatoes & Colors of Summer Salad Recipe
How To Trim Tomato Plants & Why You Should
Growing Arkansas Traveler Tomatoes & How To Save Your Own Tomato Seeds
What To Do With All Those Green Tomatoes? Make Green Tomato Relish!

© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where a raucous thunderstorm dropped a lovely half inch of rain on us today, and that was on top of the 1-1/2 inches we had two nights ago. Everything is growing like crazy!