Eggplant or Alien?
Weighing in at 3 Pounds, 1 Ounce… It’s Big… Bad…BERTHA!!!
Eggplant: Love it or hate it… you gotta admit, this is one impressive looking three-pound, 1-ounce specimen! I grew several like this behemoth. I was so impressed with the massive size that I named each one. I had Big Bertha, Bubba, Big Bad Betty, and so on. My sincere apologies to all the Betty’s, Bubba’s, and Bertha’s out there if you’re not fond of eggplant, but just know I named them in total admiration of their beauty.
The back story: Last spring, I started some Black Beauty seeds inside and planted them in the garden when the soiled warmed up. If you’re not familiar with Black Beauty, it’s an heirloom from the 1900’s and is the common variety sold in grocery stores. Two of the plants produced the typical looking variety as pictured on the seed packet and in the picture below. What was strange was that one plant of the three only produced the natural wonder in the picture above. As you can see from that one and the picture below, the two eggplants are like night and day.
I was pretty amazed and impressed with what this one plant produced, of course I did what most people do, right? I shared my pictures with friends on Facebook. There were lots of likes, loves, and wows. I got some friendly jokes and jabs like “Did you grow it on top of your septic”, or “It looks like a bum”. We had some good laughs. One comment, “The bigger the fruit, the bigger the seed” or something like that, prompted me to want to further explain just how remarkable these fruits were. Normally the comment would be a true statement for things like cucumber and zucchini for example. However, all these gargantuan eggplants, that were bigger than my head by the way, ALL of them had normal size seeds. So weird, huh? I had to reply to the comment about how that wasn’t the case. I even went on about how delicious they were. Not sure what the deal was or if they believed me, but strangely enough the exchange has since disappeared. C’est la vie!
Ok, really… I have got to tell you this. I totally thought the eggplant would be bitter and have large seeds, but I was absolutely shocked when I cut it open. I was like, “well that’s a horse of a different color”! (oh, how I love a good Wizard of OZ reference). Anyway, it was like multiple “normal” eggplants that were just fused together. I mean, one weird but wonderful fruit made two 9x13 trays of Eggplant Parmesan. Ooh… and let me tell you. Soooooo dang yummy!
Well, this unusual oddity mystified me for weeks, so I did some digging. By the way, isn’t it amazing what a little internet research and the right sources can get you? My twelve-year-old self would’ve never imagined the possibilities when I was inserting a 5 ¼ inch floppy into that old Commodore all those years ago. Ah… the memories!
Just a girl and her eggplant… Why yes, it’s bigger than my head!
Is the suspense killing you yet? Yes, yes! Stay with me because the mystery has been solved. <gasp> Sadly, I did not grow a Guinness record worthy eggplant and I won’t be offered a starring role for the wonder veg on any agricultural circuit. As it turns out, there’s a completely logical explanation unfortunately. Truth be told, I much preferred the idea of an attack of the killer eggplant type scenario. Disappointingly, I am now fairly confident there was a bit of a mix up in the processing and packaging of my seeds because the Aswad Eggplant looks identical to my seemingly unnatural fruits. <sigh> Aswad means “black” in Arabic. This variety is a heat-tolerant Iraqi variety. Which also explains why this plant did so well in our extra-long heat wave and dry spell. Mind Blown! I had never even heard of it. There really are so many cool heirlooms out there. Of course, after all of this, there was no way I wasn’t going to buy some actual Aswad seeds so I can grow some Big Bad Bertha’s again next year.
Until next time…
Dream Big, Plant Love, and Grow Where You’re Planted
XOXO - Laurie