eGarden © 2008 Ed Mues

January 2, 2008

Try Planting Something Different

Did you receive "The Kitchen Counter Herb Garden" from Hammacher Schlemmer as a gift this season? I didn’t either. How about their Upside Down Tomato Garden? No? Nor did I. How about a poinsettia in one of the newest colors like Cinnamon Star, Apricot Candy, or Shimmer Surprise? No luck here, either. I just brought home a nice fresh red. I still like red the best. I guess I’m a traditionalist. In that same vein, I wish you all a happy and healthy new year.

I don’t expect that you remember, but last year as I’m wont to do, I encouraged readers to try something new in the yard or garden. I suggested it could be anything from a new annual bedding plant or perennial or vegetable. A tree or shrub was part of the offer, too. Even a houseplant would work. The excitement of the new was what I was trying to instill.

I shortly afterward notified you that long time friends and colleagues sent me some seeds to try something different for myself. (Tit for tat, so to speak.) I shared with you that it was a strange, previously unknown-to-me plant native to India and grown in South East Asia. I recall telling readers that I would report on it in the future. I dedicate this column to my two dear friends, Tony and Martha in Jeffersonville. What an adventure they sent me on by giving me those seeds. A parallel adventure I wished for you, too. The world of eggplants is huge, complicated, and very beautiful. The genus has over 1400 species. David Cavagnaro’s photo, Eggplants of the World, is inspiring and very colorful, I’m sure you agree. It barely scratches the surface, yet I spot at least six of my new plants’ fruits.

“Eggplants of the world”
David Caravagno’s photo, used with permission.

First, the plant’s name is Solanum integrifolium ‘Red Ruffles’ (aka. Solanum aethiopicum ‘Hmong Red’ ). Yes, it’s a nightshade family plant. More specifically, it’s an eggplant that looks nothing like the eggplant we are familiar with seeing and eating. I spotted at least six in David’s picture. The seeds looked like other nightshade family plants, similar to bell pepper or tomato seeds. They germinated rather quickly (less than 15 days) and I waited until it was safe to plant them out, transplanting them once into pots and keeping them for a few weeks in bright light.

I’m blessed or cursed with being an information junkie, of sorts. Our new plant has a myriad of nicknames. Scarlet eggplant, mini-pumpkins, pumpkins on a stick, Hmong eggplant, Ethiopian eggplant, tomato eggplant, ruffled red eggplant, sunberry, Jerusalem cherry, mad apple, etc. I found the taste quite bitter, a reputation that preceded it. They are a favorite in some stir-fry Asian cooking. I suspect it’s an acquired taste. It turns out, however, they are even more popular in the florist and craft industry. Their bright red color and ribbed fruit make them appear as miniature red pumpkins.

The nightshades have been employed in ethno-botanical, pharmaceutical and psychoactive treatments and remedies in a variety of cultures. Eggplants have been grown for more than 1500 years throughout India and China.

Why the reputation of nightshade plants also endures as dangerous and even toxic, after we learned potatoes and tomatoes were safe to eat, is simply because so many others were untested or strangers among so many peoples. After all, the berries produced by potatoes above ground are very dangerous and should never be eaten. Only the tubers below ground are safe to eat, and, then, only if they are not green. We know already of belladonna, deadly nightshade, from numerous historical accounts.

Since its foliage boasts large respectable thorns on both stems and leaves having deep purplish veins and a green-purplish cast, one blogger (Kaminsky) named it ‘Malevolence’. Nonetheless, it is a handsome plant to grow. It’s leaves with their long and rubbery thorns which stay fast on the leaves and won’t come off, and its beautiful shiny fruit changing from green to yellow to orange and, finally, to brilliant scarlet red make it a worthy ornamental plant for the sunny border.

Thorns stay on the leaves and stems,
but still prick.

The harvest: “Pumpkins on a stick” as they are sometimes called.

My plants topped out at about three feet. The fruit stalks are beautiful decorations. I brought some to a Christmas party to adorn a few table settings. Pumpkins on a stick is a most apt nickname as long as you are thinking miniature – these “pumpkins” are no larger than two inches in diameter.

They are not structured like our familiar food eggplant, Solanum melongena. Their interior is much more like a tomato or pepper, the chambers filled with an abundance of seeds. Little flesh compared to the common eggplant, or, for that matter the tomato or bell pepper they might otherwise resemble in miniature.

One Solanum ‘chippendale’, from Australia and know as ‘Bush tomato’, purportedly has flesh that has a melon-like taste. Another, Solanum ‘Dulcamara’, from Eurasia and known as ‘Bittersweet’, is a woody climbing shrub to 15 feet. Almost all of its parts are used medicinally in China. There are many others and a few that have highly ornamental characteristics for use in the garden and in floral arranging.

So, again I encourage you to try something different. I have no investment or anything to gain by suggesting this or any other newness to your landscape. I simply offer you an adventure of a sort you might not have experienced in a while. Once you get to know a newcomer, the thrill becomes personal, one you can share with others via pictures, samples, seeds or verbal discourse. The standout in the flower bed or along side the drive will surprise and delight you and your visitors. C’mon. Look at all those catalogs. Surely something there is tugging at your heartstrings.

He who plants a garden, plants happiness. Chinese proverb

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on January 2, 2008

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