Black Beauty Eggplant Seeds (Solanum melongena)

Solanum melongena “Black Beauty”

Black Beauty eggplant, melongene, brinjal: this American variety from the early 20th century has become the benchmark for black eggplants—the one that established the very image of the vegetable in our minds. Early and productive, it bears deep, glossy black fruits renowned for their good keeping quality.

Characteristics:

• Glossy black fruits: approximately 13 cm long, with firm, mildly bitter flesh.
• Early variety: it produces early and abundantly, an asset in our climate.
• Suitable for growing in pots: it adapts well to balconies and terraces when grown in a large container.

Precautions:

• Like all nightshades, its foliage and immature fruits contain solanine and must not be eaten. Only well-formed, glossy fruits are edible, and they must always be cooked.
• Frost-tender and cold-sensitive: it suffers as soon as nighttime temperatures fall below 12 °C.

Sowing advice:

• Position: warm, sunny, and sheltered from the wind.
• Soil: very rich in humus, deep, moist, and well drained. This is an extremely hungry plant: a generous addition of mature compost is crucial for fruiting. It is sensitive to standing water.
• Method: sow indoors in pots from February onward, at 24-26 °C—this is the critical point, as eggplant germinates poorly below 20 °C and is far more demanding than tomatoes in this respect. Sow outdoors only from May onward, once all risk of frost has passed. See how to sow your seeds.

Planting advice:

• Transplant after the frosts, spacing plants 60 cm apart, and provide a stake: fruit-laden stems bend easily.

Care advice:

• Water regularly at the base to keep the soil moist, without wetting the foliage. Mulch generously.
• Tip: limit each plant to 5 or 6 fruits by pinching out the stem above the last one in our climate. You will get eggplants that actually ripen rather than a dozen underdeveloped fruits.

Harvesting advice:

• Harvest when the skin is deep black and glossy. As soon as it becomes dull, the fruit is overripe: its flesh is then bitter and full of hard seeds.

Beneficial companions:

• It appreciates growing near beans, which fix the nitrogen it craves, and marigolds, which help limit nematodes. Avoid growing it after tomatoes or potatoes. See companion planting in the vegetable garden.

Benefits for biodiversity:

• Its purple flowers require buzz pollination: bumblebees, which can vibrate their muscles at high frequency, do the work. Honeybees are unable to do this.
• Welcoming bumblebees into the garden therefore directly improves your eggplant harvest.

Uses:

• Roasted in the oven, in ratatouille, moussaka, eggplant caviar, or grilled. Always cooked, never raw.

Saving your own seeds:
Leave one fruit well beyond the eating stage, until it turns yellow and wrinkles. Then remove the seeds, rinse them, and dry them. Since eggplant is mostly self-pollinating, cross-pollination is limited. See saving your seeds.

Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatments. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.

The great classic of the Mediterranean vegetable garden, early and generous.