Seeds of my homegrown Black Beauty Heirloom Organic Eggplant

This is beautiful, mature seed ready for planting, it has been hand harvested.

It is an 18-24 inch plant with 4-6 inch fruit.

This popular heirloom variety yields plump, 4-5 inch diameter, shiny purple fruits with rich flavor that is great for eggplant parmesan, ratatouille and many other dishes.

It takes full sun and moderate watering

1/4 inch depth planting

18 inch spacing

Harvest in 80 days

Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is a species of nightshade commonly known in British English as aubergine and also known as melongene, garden egg, or guinea squash. It bears a fruit of the same name (commonly either "eggplant" in American and Australian English or "aubergine" in British English) that is widely used in cooking, most notably as an important ingredient in dishes such as moussaka and ratatouille. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to both the tomato and the potato.

The eggplant is a delicate, tropical perennial often cultivated as a tender or half-hardy annual in temperate climates. It grows 40 to 150 cm (16 to 57 in) tall, with large, coarsely lobed leaves that are 10 to 20 cm (4–8 in) long and 5 to 10 cm (2–4 in) broad. Sem-iwild types can grow much larger, to 225 cm (7 ft) with large leaves over 30 cm (12 in) long and 15 cm (6 in) broad. The stem is often spiny. The flower is white to purple, with a five-lobed corolla and yellow stamens. The egg-shaped glossy black fruit has white flesh with a meaty texture. The cut surface of the flesh rapidly turns brown when the fruit is cut open.

The fruit is botanically classified as a berry and contains numerous small, soft seeds which are edible.

Nutritionally, eggplant is low in fat, protein, and carbohydrates. A 1998 study at the Institute of Biology of São Paulo State University, Brazil, found eggplant juice to significantly reduce weight, plasma cholesterol levels, and aortic cholesterol content.

The raw fruit can have a somewhat bitter taste, but becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor. Many recipes advise salting, rinsing and draining of the sliced fruit (known as "degorging"), to soften it and to reduce the amount of fat absorbed during cooking, but mainly to remove the bitterness of the earlier cultivars. Some modern varieties - including large, purple varieties commonly imported into Western Europe - do not need this treatment. The fruit is capable of absorbing large amounts of cooking fats and sauces, making for very rich dishes, but salting reduces the amount of oil absorbed. Eggplant, due to its texture and bulk, can be used as a meat substitute in vegan and vegetarian cuisine.

The fruit flesh is smooth, as in the related tomato. The numerous seeds are soft and edible along with the rest of the fruit. The thin skin is also edible.

Source: Wikipedia