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Eggplant. Difficult to grow and not recommended
for beginners, but it provides the cook with a fruit for several superb
dishes. Eggplant is highly sensitive to its environment. It is definitely
a warm-weather plant, needs a long growing season of 100 to 140 days,
with high average temperatures both day and night, a soil well warmed
before it can be set outdoors, and most careful attention to disease and
insect control.
Although eggplant requires very fertile soil,
use of fresh manure or big quantities of commercial fertilizer is not
advisable. It is recommended that the soil used is that which has long
been treated well, and a few plants will bear many fruits. Florida High
Bush, Black Beauty, Fort Myers Market, and. New Hampshire Hybrids are
common varieties. Seed should be sown in hotbed or green house.
Two months is needed to grow plants for transplanting,
and their growth must not be checked by low temperatures or any other
causes. The plants should be placed 30 inches apart in rows 3 feet apart.
The plants with stems that are neither hard nor woody are the ones that
usually develop well.
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