A Flat Full of Nightshade

Welcome, fellow Midwestern Yardeners, to an exciting new gardening season! Ten days ago we planted our cabbage, I am happy to report that we now have seedlings! Today we planted our nightshades; tomatoes, peppers and eggplant to be more specific. All of these are seeds that I purchase through Baker Creek and I have added their descriptions to each vegetable below.

Eggplant Mitoyo
Large fruit is oval to teardrop shaped and nearly black. Flesh is very tender and sweet. It is even highly recommended for use without cooking! Fruit is also excellent baked or roasted, and is often pickled as well in its native Japan, where the variety was originally collected at a local market. Traditionally grown in the Mitoyo and Kanonji areas, it is one of the best-tasting eggplants we have ever tried.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 90 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 18in

Eggplant Melanzane Rossa
A truly scrumptious and unique member of the eggplant family, it tastes like a combination of eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers. It is traditionally made into gourmet caponata or preserved and pickled. This red round fruit is popular in the Italian province of Potenza. The bright orange, round fruit was originally brought to Rotonda, Italy, from Ethiopia just before World War II and can often be found in jars of olive oil and spread on crusty Italian bread.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 70-80 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 18in

Eggplant Chinese String
This marvelous eggplant is so sweet it is even delicious raw in salads, and this buttery, tender East China variety is our top choice for doing just that! Very high-yielding plants produce profusions of 10- to 15-inch long fruit with lavender-violet skin and snowy white flesh. A superior choice for sautéing, grilling, and more! Fire up the wok and make the best pan of Chinese eggplant you will ever taste! Eggplant has an ancient history in China, where it is used for food and medicine. This is a masterpiece of thousands of years of eggplant selection from this amazing land. We grow these almost year-round in our greenhouses and outdoors in the warmer months They are super quick to mature. We cook the new baby fruit whole like green beans, only these are better!
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 70-80 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 18in

Pepper Sugar Rush Peach
The long, peach-colored fruit is packed with loads of super sweet, tropical flavor, and the seeds bring a smoky, complex heat that creates a wild flavor experience unparalleled in any pepper we have tried. This exciting new open-pollinated variety was bred by hot pepper prodigy Chris Fowler of Wales. Chris credits this amazing variety as being a happy accident courtesy of adventurous pollinating insects buzzing between various varieties of Capsicum baccatum, or Aji peppers. The result: super early, high yields of these exquisite sweet-hot peppers.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: Not Available
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 14-18in

Pepper Aji Mango
Tangerine color, mango sweetness with a nice searing heat… perhaps the perfect pepper! This aji-type pepper packs an impressive heat of about 25,000 Scoville Heat Units, which is hot but not unbearable, like a hot serrano or lemon drop pepper. A fantastic pepper for cooking, pickling and hot sauce.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 80-90 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 14-18in

Pepper Brown Jalapeno
Wildly productive plants are smothered in leviathan-sized chocolate colored pods. These smoky and flavorful peppers average 4-6 inches and length, ideal for stuffing and roasting. High yields, fabulous sweet flavor and vigorous growth habit has earned Brown Jalapeño top marks in our pepper trials!
Planted: February 20
Maturity: Not Available
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 14-18in

Tomato Amish Paste
Many seed savers believe this is the ultimate paste tomato. Giant, blocky, Roma type tomatoes have delicious red flesh that is perfect for paste and canning. It has world-class flavor.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 80 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 24in

Tomato Brown Sugar
A Russian heirloom with silky texture and a smoky, complex flavor. Black tomatoes are famous for their rich, nuanced flavor, and the 7-oz., globe- shaped fruit of Brown Sugar does not disappoint. This is a gourmet, sugar-sweet tomato, just perfect for snacking, slicing, cooked dishes, and sauces.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 75-95 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 24in

Tomato Matino’s Roma
Fantastic yields of richly flavorful plum-shaped tomatoes, on compact plants that require very little staking! Resistant to early blight, reliable for home or market gardens! The paste-type fruit weighs in at 2-3 ounces, dry-fleshed and very meaty with few seeds. Great for sauces, salsas and pastes.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 70-80 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 24in

Tomato Mushroom Basket
A favorite variety, introduced from Russia. One of the most beautiful and attractive tomatoes we have ever grown. It is very ribbed and pleated, but otherwise very uniform, large and perfect looking, being a vibrant watermelon-pink color with cream colored speckles that really make the fruit sparkle and glisten. Short, indeterminate plants produce a large mass of these fruit in a thick clustered area in the center of the plant. The flavor is sweet, mild and good; flesh is firm and the seeds are very few.
Planted: February 20
Maturity: 75 days
Light: Full Sun
Plant Spacing: 24in

Bursting into Spring

Lincoln Park Conservatory: Sweet Gnome Chicago