Seed For Very Early Aubergines
In 2002 we started looking for early aubergines. We asked collectors around the world for their earliest & most reliable varieties, 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.
Sowing Information
When to sow aubergine seed? You must start it really early, under cover, and keep the seeds warm until they germinate - for example in a propagator or in your airing cupboard.
(swipe to scroll)
“Krasan” Early Aubergine NEW GUEST VARIETY FOR TRIAL
Here's another early Czech-bred aubergine for you to try out, this time with a fatter rounder shape. It is from the same breeder as our incredibly sucessful thinner "Czech Early" variety, so we have high hopes for it, and are pleased to have some fresh seed for you to try this year. Needs to be grown under cover but if we get at least some sun it should do well!.
In our 2025 trials this did incredibly well with fruit ready to harvest at the start of June!
about 20 seed £2.66
Black Beauty
Our star producer in 2016, Black Beauty is a modern early aubergine that produces really fat fruit on nice sturdy plants. Like all aubergines, requires a polytunnel or greenhouse, but it can make really huge fruit when its happy, the picture here on the car bonnet has a pound coin for scale!
Pear-shaped fat black fat fruit.
22 seed £2.40
Czech Early
An amazing aubergine from the Czech republic, this is really quick to set fruit and then carries on for ages. They are about the size of a pear, and it just makes more and more and more as long as you keep picking it.
Really early. Highly productive; we couldn't keep up with eating all the aubergines from 6 plants.
about 20 seed £2.66
De Barbentane
A great medium-sized cylindrical aubergine from France, with firm white flesh. We have always found it quick to get going and the plants are very sturdy.This variety was bred for outdoor growing (in France, so we in the UK still need to grow it under cover) and it doesn't require the high temperatures that glasshouse aubergines are used to.
Earliness, consistently high production and good flavour make this one of our favourites.
Long black fruit, white flesh.
22 seed £2.40
Diamond - BACK IN STOCK (AFTER 12 YEARS!)
This great plant produces nice plump black fruit 3" x 6" long, with soft flesh & not a hint of bitterness. From the Ukraine, it is well adapted to cooler/shorter summers, and is always productive for us, with a very good flavour.
In this picture, taken in our polytunnel in Wales in the terrible summer of 2012, you can see the plants are just loaded with fruit - and they weren't even started in a propagator!
We are so pleased to be able to offer this aubergine once again. We last offered seed of it in 2013 and it was fantastic but we just hadn't managed to grow any since then. We now have new seed and hope you all enjoy trying this one out.
Early & prolific, adapted to UK conditions!
18 seed, organic. £2.97
Koulon Eggplant
A great discovery back in 2018. Originally from Seed Savers Exchange, it is really good, making clusters of lovely fruit that can be picked young as baby aubergines.
The great thing is that you can also leave them to get really long and they stay tender with no bitterness. We enjoyed eating these all summer and autumn from our polytunnel here in Wales.
Loads of aubergines over a long period, and perfect eating large or small!
14, organic. £3.40
Long Purple
A very well-known variety making longer thinner fruit , that are (unsurprisingly) deep purple . This particular version of it is maintained by the seedhouse of Pieterpikzonen in The Netherlands, and so is selected for European conditions.
Long deep-purple fruit, white flesh.
20 seed £2.13
Ronde de Valence
Another traditional and early variety that makes large black fruit. They are round-to-oval , gently ribbed, and it does really well under cover in the UK.
Large rounded black fruit, white flesh.
20 seed £2.39
White Dourga
A great new variety brought to our attention by Jen Boncyk. She grows seed for us on her small farm high up in the mountains in the Pyrenees in France, and is always on the lookout for early high-yielding varieties.
She said we really should try this one, and it is fantastic! It produces early and carries on fruiting for a long time. Did really well in our polytunnel here in Wales.
An old French variety ; the abundant fruit are a long classic shape with white skin, and firm and tasty.
16 seed, organic. £2.72Saving Your Own Aubergine Seed
Saving aubergine seeds
Using a sieve for aubergine seed saving
seed saving aubergines