VEGETABLE SEEDS Aubergines Beans - French Beans - Runner Beetroot Broad Beans Broccoli & Rapini Brussels Sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Carrots Celery Chilli Peppers Courgettes & Summer Squash Cucumbers, Gherkins & suchlike things Fennel Flowers Grains Herbs Kale Kohl Rabi Leaf Greens for Cooking Leeks Lettuces Melons & Watermelons Mustard Greens ( for cooking) Onions - spring sowing Onions - overwintering Onions - special types Oriental Greens for cooking & salads Parsnips Peas Pumpkins & Winter Squash Radishes (salad, & cooking types) Root Parsley NEW Salad Vegetables Sweet Corn Swedes Sweet Peppers Tomatoes : Bush Types Tomatoes : Vines - Cherries Tomatoes : Vines - Larger Tomatoes : Bulgarian Tomatoes : New Centiflor types Tomatilloes & Groundcherries Turnips Unusual Tubers: Oca & Yacon

Back in 2002 we started our aubergine trials. We asked many collectors around the world for their earliest & most reliable varieties to try out, and grew them together to compare them.

The 'best of the best' are offered here - these ultra-early aubergines give you a good chance of a decent crop in the variable UK summers. We've had really nice letters from people who haven't been able to grow aubergines until they tried these varieties.

Aubergines are a little slower growing than their near relatives the Tomatoes & Peppers.
The key point is to start them off with some heat and then either transplant out (after all danger of frost)
or grow on in a greenhouse/polytunnel (depending on your local climate).

Josie says "this one's my favourite" ...

When to sow aubergine seed? You must start it going really early, under cover, and keep the
seeds warm until they germinate - for example in a propagator or in your airing cupboard.

This variety was bred for outdoor growing (in France, mind you, so we in the UK are really better off growing it under a bit of cover) and it does not require the same high temperatures that glasshouse aubergines are used to.

Earliness, consistently high production and good flavour make this one of our favourites. If you only grow one, try this one!

Long black fruit, white flesh.

Order AuBN - 25 seed £2.09

Ronde de Valence

This is another early variety with round black fruit about the size of a tennis-ball. Should do well in greenhouses and polytunnels in most areas.

Round black fruit, early type

Order AuRV - 25 seed £2.04

Saving your own Aubergine Seed:

Ben demonstrates: Here you can see the seed squidged out of a very ripe fruit - this is best done in a bowl of water -
then rinsed through a sieve, and tapped out onto a plate to dry.

Aubergines do cross quite a lot, so you need to grow only one variety - or isolate plants (or branches) with a net cage.