Welcome to my blog

I like to know if anyone is looking at my blog so please comment, if you can think of something, to say or e-mail me at madsmckeever@eircom.net

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Diamond Aubergine and Maca

For some reason the seeds of the new variety of aubergine, Diamond, that we grew last year, didn't germinate well, in the tests before Christmas. I didn't get around to putting the maca seeds onto the internet either. They are both germinating fine now and are up on the website. There is just about time to sow aubergines if you haven't done so already, I am not completely sure when maca should be sown. It doesn't like hot weather, so perhaps it is better sown in late summer. The maca in the picture was sown in spring 2009, none of it grew bigger than a golf ball, and if flowered quickly, during the following spring. One plant went to seed in the first year and produced lots of seedlings with no swollen root at all. I pulled these out to discourage that sort of thing. The plants in the foreground are the result of this cull. It was interesting that the seedlings grew and survived the winter as there were no self sown seedlings from the spring flowering plants. This picture was taken in May 2010. You can read more about maca here.
Being from the Ukraine, Diamond is an early aubergine, and did well for us last season. We haven't got a lot of seed because we ate too many of them.

5 comments:

  1. That Ukranian Aubergine should do well in Irish conditions. Have never had great success with Aubergine. Have never heard of Maca, one to research. Have started a new blog page.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maca is reputedly a a cure-all for 'women's complaints' and an aphrodisiac for men and women. Also god for stamina, infertiity etc. I first heard of it from Sarah, of http://www.saraschoice.com/?page_id=17, who I met at an Organic Trust meeting. I tried taking it for a while. I think it had an affect, it is always hard to know what is working and what isn't.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Have you tied your own maca? I'm wondering how different it might be to the stuff from the Andes. Your climate is, er, a little different.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Owen, I did eat a few of the weedy looking roots but left the rest to go to seed. I mean to grow enough this year to really give it a go. Its hard to know what a suitable dose is. The little capsules can't have much in them. I am also not sure if I should sow in spring or autumn, I should try both and I will report results here eventually.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We are looking for maca seeds to Kashmir
    write to us at: jkmpic@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete