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Solanum melongena 'Ping Tung Long' |
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| fruit just starting to develop |
Common name |
oriental eggplant |
Family |
solanaceae |
Life cycle |
annual vegetable |
Flowers |
purple (summer) |
Size |
24" |
Light |
sun |
From seed  |
start indoors about 8 weeks before last frost; germinate with bottom heat detailed seed-starting info below
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This is one of the vegetables we've almost every year since we started gardening. We like it for its long, tender, shiny purple fruits, grown on sturdy plants. The first few years, it did well in our vegetable garden. For some reason my luck turned after those teaser years: I'd start nice plants indoors, but they'd just peter out in the garden, attacked by flea beetles and never putting on much growth. A few years ago I decided it was time for a change, and planted them in two of the four positions in our Earthbox planter, which we keep on our patio. A brilliant move! The plants have grown strong and stocky ever since, with plentiful fruit by late July. This is the only Solanum melongena variety we grow, which has helped preserve its genetic make-up – plants and fruit from home-collected seed look just the same as those from purchased seed.
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We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston. One or more images of this plant are included in my stock photo catalog About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Solanum melongena 'Ping Tung Long'
- Seed from '08 garden. Baggy 75F (94%G, 4-9d)
- Same seed as above. Baggy 75F (100%G, 5-10d)
- Same seed as above. Baggy 75F (93%G, 5-11d)
I have plenty of other seed-starting records for 'Pintung Long', but they're mostly pretty similar: pretty easy to germinate at warm temperatures, with decent long-term seed viability.
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