Rotonda di Bianca eggplant seeds (Solanum melongena)

Solanum melongena “Rotonda Bianca”

Rotonda Bianca eggplant, round white eggplant, egg-shaped eggplant: this type of variety is why the eggplant gets its English name, eggplant — the first ones introduced to Europe were white and egg-shaped. Its flesh is milder, creamier, and above all less bitter than that of black varieties, with significantly fewer seeds.

Characteristics:

• White, round fruits: a traditional Italian variety, highly decorative.
• Mild, creamy flesh: barely bitter, so salting to draw out excess moisture is unnecessary.
• Easy to grow: suitable for gardens as well as terraces and balconies in a large pot.
• Thin skin: no need to peel it; it softens during cooking.

Precautions:

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

Sowing advice:

• Exposure: 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 supply of well-rotted compost is crucial for fruiting.
• Method: sow indoors in pots from February onward, at 24-26 °C — a critical point: eggplant germinates poorly below 20 °C and is far more demanding than tomatoes. See how to sow your seeds.

Planting advice:

• Transplant after the frosts, spacing plants 60 cm apart, and provide a stake: stems laden with round, heavy fruits bend easily.

Care advice:

• Water regularly at the base without wetting the foliage. Mulch generously.
• In our climate, limit the plant to 4 or 5 fruits by pinching out the stem above the last one: you will get truly developed eggplants rather than a succession of unfinished ones.

Harvesting advice:

• Harvest when the fruit is completely white, firm, and shiny. As soon as it turns yellow or becomes dull, it is overripe: its flesh becomes bitter and full of hard seeds.

Beneficial companion plants:

• It thrives near beans, which fix the nitrogen it craves, and marigolds, which help limit nematodes. Avoid growing it after tomatoes or potatoes. Also see Black Beauty eggplant and companion planting in the vegetable garden.

Benefits for biodiversity:

• Its purple flowers require buzz pollination: only bumblebees, which can vibrate their muscles at high frequency, are capable of it. Welcoming them into the garden directly improves your harvest.
• Growing colorful heirloom varieties helps preserve cultivated diversity.

Uses:

• Its round shape makes it the perfect eggplant for stuffing. It is also excellent roasted in thick slices, grilled, in parmigiana, or as a dip. 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 remains limited. See how to save 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 Volcanoes of Auvergne, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, test them for germination rates, and carefully sort and package them, without any chemical treatment. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.

The white eggplant of Italian vegetable gardens, mild and made for stuffing.