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Of all the vegetable crops grown in Russian gardens, eggplants are considered the most difficult. These plants are very capricious: eggplants need a lot of light, constant high air temperature, a certain level of humidity, nutritious and loose soil. Creating ideal conditions for the growth of eggplants is quite difficult, and it also requires a lot of effort and time from the farmer.
You can increase your chances of harvesting a good eggplant harvest by growing seedlings of this crop yourself.
These fragile plants must be transferred from one soil to another in the shortest possible time, which is almost impossible when buying seedlings, but is quite feasible within your own summer cottage.
Read about when to plant eggplant seedlings in 2023, how to do it correctly, and how to care for these complex plants.
Eggplant Requirements
To understand when to sow eggplant seedlings, you need to know all the weak points of this crop and the requirements it makes.
So, For normal growth and development, eggplants need:
- Get as much sunlight as possible. In cloudy weather, plants do not develop. Eggplants do not like dense plantings and shaded areas - each bush should receive its own dose of sunlight.
- Constant temperature air at +25 degrees. If the temperature drops below 20 degrees at night, the plants will not develop as expected. And at 15 degrees, eggplants die completely.
- Light and loose soilsaturated with nutrients and oxygen. This requires additional care from the gardener: the soil between the eggplant bushes needs to be regularly fluffed and loosened; these plants love hilling and mulching the soil.
- Regular watering - the ground under the blue ones should never be dry. Watering eggplants is necessary based on weather conditions. On average, this is once every five days. In this case, the water for irrigation should be warm (about 23-25 degrees), and it is better to water the plants in the early morning.
Landing dates
Calculating the timing of planting eggplant seedlings is one of the most difficult tasks. Here you need to take into account several factors at once, each of them should be discussed in more detail.
Growing season
The growing season is the time that passes from the moment of seed germination to the appearance of mature fruits on the bushes. Eggplants have the longest growing season compared to other vegetable crops (tomatoes, peppers). This time ranges from 100 to 150 days.
It should also be taken into account that after this time, the eggplant will only reach the stage of technical maturity, that is, the vegetable can already be eaten, processed or canned, but, in fact, the blue ones are still “green” during this period. From such fruits it will not be possible to collect seeds for the next season, for example. The little blue ones need another 15-20 days before full biological maturation.
In most of Russia, the climate is considered unfavorable for growing heat-loving crops. And that’s exactly what eggplant is. Basically, farmers in the middle zone and northern part of the country grow eggplants in greenhouses, hotbeds or under film covers. But there are also daredevils who get high yields by planting seedlings in open ground.
In this case, it is better to choose seeds of early ripening or ultra-early ripening varieties. As a rule, these eggplants are less productive, but the plants have a better chance of producing their fruits in short and cool summer conditions. The ripening period for blue ones for regions of Russia should be from 90 to 110 days.
Germination time
To the growing season it is also necessary to add the time of seed germination. For good seed material this period is about 10-12 days. It is in this gap that the first fragile shoots appear from the soil.
Seed preparation includes the following activities::
- rejection;
- disinfection;
- nutrition;
- preliminary germination.
To choose the most “worthy” seeds, all the seeds from the bag are poured onto the table and carefully examined. Good eggplant seeds have smooth edges and are one color. When immersed in water, such seeds should not float to the surface.
Having selected the best “candidates,” they are placed in a linen bag and immersed in warm (about 28 degrees) water for a day. After this, the bag is removed from the water and placed on a saucer, maintaining constant moisture in the fabric for 4-5 days.
After the specified time, the seeds should hatch. If more than half of the seeds from the bag have hatched, the material can be planted as seedlings.
Now it’s time for the second stage - disinfection. To do this, the seeds in a bag are dipped in a strong solution of manganese (1%). You can’t keep them for a long time, 20-30 minutes is enough. After this, the seeds are thoroughly washed with running water.
In order to strengthen the seedlings and speed up the germination of seeds, the bag with them is dipped into a container with a nutrient solution. This may be a purchased special mixture, but you can save money by dissolving several beds of wood ash in a liter of warm water. To saturate the seeds with nutrients, it is necessary to keep them in the solution for one day.
After this, the seeds are laid out on a moistened cloth and waited for several days until they hatch.
Growing eggplant seedlings
Growing eggplant seedlings is not that difficult; you just need to know a few simple rules. From the day the blue ones are sowed until they are transplanted into the ground, about 75-85 days should pass. This period includes the development of seedlings from the moment the first shoots appear until the day when the plants have 7-8 true leaves and several buds, and the plant height is about 20 cm (65-70 days). Plus, to this period it is necessary to add 10-12 days for germination - from sowing the seeds in the ground until the first greenery appears.
In total, it turns out that the seedlings should be about 75-85 days old by the time they are planted in the ground.
Growing eggplant seedlings must follow a number of rules:
- Before planting seeds in the ground, they need to be prepared.
- It is better to plant eggplants immediately in individual containers - the crop does not tolerate picking.
- The seeds do not need to be buried too deep - a groove of 0.5 cm is quite enough. Sprinkle the seed on top with a 1.5-centimeter layer of dry, loose soil. This way, the seeds will receive the necessary dose of oxygen.
- For the first 10-14 days, keep the pots with seeds at a constant temperature of 28 degrees for seedlings to emerge.
- After half the seedlings appear, the seedlings are transferred to a cooler room - 21-23 degrees. This climate is maintained for 5-7 days. At this time, the eggplants are forming roots, and too high a temperature will cause the plants to stretch upward instead of rooting.
- Then the temperature must be increased to 25 degrees and maintained at this level day and night.
- It is important to monitor the degree of illumination of eggplants. Little blue, planted as seedlings in winter, runs the risk of not receiving enough light, so the plants need to be illuminated with electric lamps for about 10-12 hours a day.
- You only need to water fragile sprouts with warm water from a spray bottle so as not to wash away the soil. The soil in pots with eggplant seedlings should be constantly moist.
- When the seedlings have 2-3 true leaves, they can be pricked (if necessary). Before transplanting into individual containers, seedlings are watered generously with warm water.
- Strong eggplant seedlings, about 20 cm high, with 7-8 leaves and the first buds, are quite ready for transplanting to a permanent place (in a greenhouse or in a garden bed).
Method of growing eggplants
Another point that must be taken into account when calculating the timing of sowing eggplants is the method of growing the plants.
So, blue ones can be planted in unheated greenhouses or greenhouses two weeks earlier than in open ground. At this point, weather conditions should be such that the plants have enough sunlight and heat.
Therefore, when growing them in greenhouses, you need to open the greenhouses for ventilation in time so that the plants do not overheat, and close the doors early in the evening to preserve warm air inside the greenhouse.
Climatic features of the region
An important factor is the climate in a particular region of the country. If in the south you can safely plant eggplant seedlings in open beds already in early May, then in the rest of the country you will have to wait.
A gardener must independently assess the climatic characteristics of his region by analyzing the weather over the past few years.
As a rule, in central Russia, eggplant seedlings are planted in beds in mid-May. Accordingly, the little blue ones can be transferred to the greenhouse at the beginning of the same month.
For Western Siberia The best time for planting blue ones in the ground is considered to be the end of May (27-31). Residents of more northern regions will have to wait until the first ten days of June or plant eggplants in a closed greenhouse at the end of May.
Best sowing dates
Taking into account all the above factors, we can calculate optimal timing for sowing eggplant seedlings in a particular region:
- farmers in the southern part of the country can start sowing seeds as early as early February, and for greenhouses - even in January (after the 15th);
- central Russia begins to plant eggplant seedlings in late February and early March;
- For the north, March is considered a suitable period.
When growing blueberries in a greenhouse, it is necessary to subtract at least two weeks from the specified period.
Determining the correct timing for sowing seedlings is, of course, important. But the process of growing eggplants is much more complex and responsible. After all, only by growing healthy and strong seedlings can you count on a good harvest.
