Surely the great veg growers love all crops unconditionally, delighting in every kind of fresh produce. If you think that, think again. A case in point. As much as he praises their shape, colour, and abundance, as much as he tries to imagine a way to spice them up, as much as he puts a brave face on it, Medwyn Williams MBE is clearly not enamoured with aubergines.
‘Aubergines are not my favourite vegetable by any means. Quite honestly I find them rather bland to eat. The flesh is like a sponge inside, there’s just no flavour.’ Nevertheless, Medwyn is open-minded enough to concede that others may feel differently. And, from a growing perspective, he’s been more than happy to have a crack at the eggplant.
If only they reciprocated!
In terms of a harvest, Medwyn’s aubergines have actually turned out to be a stellar performer this year, in an otherwise difficult season. ‘It’s true that things have suffered terribly, but we’ve had quite a lot of aubergines and size-wise they’re ideal for the kitchen, if only I knew what to do with them!’ Regardless of their culinary appeal, the eggplants look fantastic.
There’s been plentiful supply of long, creamy-hued, early-to-harvest White Knights. For density, meatiness and aubergine-coloured-ness you’d have had to go a long way to beat Medwyn’s crop of Meatballs this year. And bringing a startlingly jazzy complexion, compact size, and firm texture to the table were Medwyn’s prolific Marble Jewel plants. Medwyn attributes a huge part of the success he has had with the aubergines this year to one particular thing.
‘Because of this hot, dry weather the AutoPot system that the aubergines are in has come into its own this year, it really has. Not only is it saving water, but the plants aren’t suffering either because they’re getting what they want when they want it.’
The contrast to some of the crops not in AutoPot is pretty stark. ‘The leeks have died back badly with this hot dry weather, we won’t be showing any of them in competition. but we all have these things that go wrong for us sometimes.’ Taking the positives, Medwyn’s also had some huge, beautiful-looking sweet peppers.
‘We’ve had big Chouca’s, a really good, chunky variety that turns red, and plenty of Campor’s, a yellow, shorter variety, pretty blocky too and a good cropper.’ Each of these fruits were more-than-handful-sized and looked spectacularly glossy. They too were cultivated in AutoPot, a mix of 15L / 3.9 gal 1Pot and 25L / 6.6 gal 1Pot XL modules fed with CANNA A&B fertiliser via the reservoir and pipework.
It’s great to see the systems defying the conditions and producing such healthy yields. Given the abundance of aubergines Medwyn has harvested we feel sure that he’d appreciate your recipe suggestions – you can ping them to him on X @medwynsofangles and enjoy yet more of his vegetable mastery!