CHINESE CONTAINER GARDENS - Growing Chinese Vegetables in Your Own Backyard - page 205

Chinese Eggplant, page 110
Solanum melongena
This is a perfect vegetable for the container gardener, a showpiece both indoors or out.
You can even grow it under lights; it's one of the few plants that fruits under those con-
ditions.
Start the seeds indoors and don't move outside until the weather has warmed up.
Transplant into 3-gallon containers, one per pot. Eggplants are heavy feeders. Once
plants are outdoors, feed every couple of weeks with half-strength liquid fertilizer.
Water copiously so roots never dry out; this means every few days in very hot, dry
weather.
Adzuki Bean, page 62
Vigna angularis
Adzuki are bush beans and very similar to snap beans in their culture. They could easily
replace common beans in the container garden. Adzukis bear prolifically (an important
factor to the container gardener) on compact, attractive plants with numerous flowers in
season. Several pots could be arranged to form a nice 2-foot-high hedge to edge a deck
or patio.
The practical way to grow them is one plant to a container. The container should be
10 to 12 inches deep and at least 6 inches in diameter. Sow three seeds to a pot, and thin
to one when the seedlings have their second set of true leaves. Adzuki beans grow bet-
ter in a little acidity, so add a little peat moss to your soil mix (or less limestone, if you
use my recipe). Fertilize when seedlings are about 4 inches high and every two weeks
thereafter. Water regularly.