Good winter, dear readers. I hope your New Year holidays were better than mine. New Year, what could be better for anyone? Days off, salads, caviar, Christmas tree, wonderful TV shows. Suddenly, on the second of January, my wife comes up and says in a gentle voice: “Let’s go to the shopping center to get some dirt.” Why do we need it now? On January second?
— Do you like eggplants? – the wife is not far behind.
“Well, I love it,” I said, remembering caviar stuffed and baked in the oven, fried on the grill.
– Do you like peppers?
– Well, I love them, especially stuffed ones.
– Well, they won’t raise themselves! – the wife said affirmatively and sent it to a specific address.
And this is what came out of it. Most of all I felt sorry for the violets, but, remembering the deliciousness of eggplants and peppers, I resigned myself.
What kind of eggplants did we decide to plant?
This year we chose two varieties of eggplant. One traditional one is “Black gloss F1”, which is suitable for everything, but stuffing is inconvenient. The fruits of this hybrid are club-shaped, medium long, weighing up to 200 g. The pulp is dense, without bitterness.
And the second is the round eggplant “Irzhik”. It’s also suitable for everything, but the best use for it is stuffing because it’s round! The fruits of this variety are large, weighing 400–500 g, slightly ribbed, with glossy black-purple skin and delicate white pulp. The taste is excellent, without bitterness.
Both varieties are early ripening, so even in regions with short summers, the harvest will ripen in late July – early August.
What about peppers?
There was almost a fight over the peppers. My wife went for cube-shaped ones, I prefer tomato-shaped ones for stuffing. There were no injuries or calling the police. For my wife, we chose beautiful cubes “Andreika”, “Bylina” and “Golden”, respectively orange, red, and yellow.
Pepper “Andreika” is an early ripening variety, up to 80 cm high. The pulp of the fruit is juicy and sweet, the wall thickness is up to 6–8 mm. The mid-season varieties “Bylina” and “Golden” ripen on the 120th day from full germination. The fruits of both varieties are thick-walled up to 7 mm, the skin is tender, they taste of fresh fruits is with a bright peppery aroma.
And my favorites for many years now are the tomato-like varieties “Grek” and “Tolstushka F1”. Both are red in biological ripeness, wall thickness up to 11 mm, and fruit weight up to 140 g. Juicy and very tasty not only stuffed, but also fresh.
And so that there would be no further quarrels, we sowed the proven species. These varietal yellow peppers, biologically ripe, have been surprising us with their yield and fruit size for many years. The fruits of “Megafon” are elongated, prism-shaped, weighing 200–250 g. But the “Tolstopuz” pepper, one might say, is a giant. Juicy, thick-walled, elongated-cuboid, weighing 250–300 g or more.
As a result, we sowed more than we planned, but we wanted to satisfy the needs of all members of our family and experiment with new products, so we are waiting for germination and a good harvest. The home field report is complete. To be continued…
PS Even though we selected the seeds during the New Year holidays, we sowed them much later. And you, dear reader, will also have time to choose, buy and sow. Until the end of February, you can safely sow pepper seeds and even eggplant.
