How Long Would It Take Plants to Grow Again After Nuclear Detonations
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The range of sizes, shapes, and colors of the heat-loving eggplant (Solanum melongena) tells the story of its indelible popularity. Native to India, where information technology grows wild, information technology has been cultivated in Southeast Asia for thousands of years.
Europe was introduced to the vegetable in the eighth century via the Moors, who brought it to Spain, Sicily, and southern France via North Africa. In the sunny, dry climate of the Mediterranean basin, eggplant institute the warm growing conditions information technology prefers and shortly found its fashion into the classic cuisines of the region.
A classic eggplant is deep purple and pear-shaped, simply when y'all grow your own, you tin try a cornucopia of other colors and shapes, from elongated lavander-and-white Fairy Tale to the round, violet-blushed Rosa Bianca. But to succeed with eggplants, you'll need to supply them with steadily warm growing conditions for at least three months. Eggplants growing in common cold soil or exposed to dank weather will sulk and potentially suffer from insect and illness bug.
Planting Eggplant
Requite eggplants a head start on the growing season by starting them indoors, 6 to nine weeks earlier the boilerplate concluding frost. Soak seeds overnight to encourage formation; sow them ¼ inch deep in a loose, fine medium, such as vermiculite. Employ bottom heat to maintain a soil temperature of 80 to 90 degrees for the eight to ten days required for sprouting.
Transplant seedlings to individual pots one time they reach 3 inches. When outside nighttime air temperatures are in a higher place 50 degrees, gradually betrayal them to the outdoors to harden them off. Keep transplanting your seedlings into larger pots as you wait for both outdoor air and soil to warm upwardly to at to the lowest degree 70 degrees.
Attempt growing eggplants in raised beds, which rut upwards quickly in spring. Plants given enough of room are healthier and more productive, and then space them 2½ to 3 feet apart in all directions. Water well, cascade 1 to ii cups of compost around each plant, and house the soil gently.
Eggplants are besides good for container growing, with 1 found per 5-gallon pot.
Growing Eggplants
Mulch immediately after transplanting, and gently hand pull whatsoever invading weeds. Interplant an early on crop, such equally lettuce, between the eggplant transplants. When the first prepare of flowers sally, pinch them off. In addition to making the plant develop several fruiting branches, this will encourage the institute to put more than energy into creating leaves and roots instead of 1 large fruit. To keep plants upright and fruit clean and intact, stalk plants with bamboo poles.
Weeding effectually the young transplants is essential. Weeds will outcompete eggplants until warm summer temperatures come. Stay on top of weeds by regularly hand-pulling or carefully weeding with a hoe or cultivator. Once the soil is warmed up, a mulch of straw or compost can be used. Grass clippings brand a good anti-weed barrier, too.
Eggplant Issues
Flea beetles, which chew many tiny holes in leaves, are eggplant's worst pest. To avert this problem, keep plants indoors until early summer, or comprehend outdoor plants with floating row embrace or dust the foliage with kaolin dirt (re-apply information technology afterwards rain). If plants become infested, spraying Beauveria bassiana or spinosad may knock back the population of flea beetles and save your plants. When eggplants are grown in containers that are at to the lowest degree a pes-and-a-half off the footing, the flea beetles don't seem to discover them as hands.
Hand selection and destroy yellow-and-black-striped Colorado potato beetles and the xanthous masses of eggs they lay on foliage undersides. Paw picking is besides effective for tomato hornworms, four-inch green caterpillars with white stripes. Don't destroy those covered with tiny white cocoons; these contain the parasitic offspring of the benign braconid wasp. Tiny spider mites cause yellow-stippled leaves; control these pests by knocking them off the institute with a spray of water.
The most common eggplant disease is Verticillium wilt. Avoid it by planting resistant cultivars and by rotating crops.
Placing a floating row comprehend over seedlings right after planting offers a twofold benefit: Information technology forms a physical barrier between the plants and insect pests, and the row encompass acts as a greenhouse, heating the air effectually the plants to a higher place the ambient temperature. This lightweight, nonwoven material can be draped directly onto the plants or tented over the row, supported past wire hoops.
Harvesting Eggplants
Choice eggplant when the pare takes on a high gloss. To test, press the skin. If the indentation doesn't bound back, that fruit is ready for harvest. To harvest, clip the eggplants off the establish with pruning shears, keeping the cap and about 1 inch of stalk intact. Lookout out for the small-scale prickles that line the stems and the cap of some varieties, every bit they are a skin irritant.
Eggplants will go on for ii weeks if refrigerated. If you cut open an eggplant fruit and find that the seeds inside have turned brown, the fruit is past prime quality and the flavor may be bitter. The best way to avoid this is by picking fruits on the immature side, when they are a tertiary to two-thirds of their fully mature size.
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Source: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/gardening/a20706884/growing-eggplants/
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