Thursday 15 October 2009

Aubergine mix – don’t do it

Aubergines have always grown reasonably well on my sheltered patio. I’m sure the yields would be greater if the sun shone more consistently, but we have enough to enjoy for around a month at the end of summer. This year, thinking I should expand my aubergine horizons, I tried a pack of mixed seeds from Mr Fothergill’s. I always like the lucky dip aspect of mixed packets – you get to sample a load of different varieties without wastage.

So, the plants all grew and I ended up keeping more than I would normally do because I was scared of giving away – or throwing out – a plant that might be the only example of its type. Anyway, we ended up with four different varieties cropping.

These ...
... were nice, if a bit dull. These ...
... had a really good, almost sweet (for an aubergine) flavour, and these fruits ...
... grew to a good size. 

And then there were these ...
  

I wasn’t even sure if these were aubergines. They looked more like mutant tomatoes - easy to see how the two plants are related. And so small: it hardly seemed worth getting the blender out to make baba ganoush with this little lot. Wondering how best to cook and eat them, I hit Google and identified them as (left) Solanum melongena, or Striped Toga aubergine (although that one in the foreground is definitely a mutant), and (right) Solanum aethiopicum.  And discovered that nearly everyone thinks they’re bitter to the point of inedibility - see Amishland Heritage Seeds, for example.