Purple heart

(QBĐT) - "December is the month to plant potatoes. January is for planting beans, February is for planting eggplants." In February, eggplants are planted so that in March, among the thousands of colors and scents of many wild herbs blooming in the full sunlight, there is always the humble color of eggplants blooming in the countryside gardens. That simple, familiar flower color is still in the memories of those who have gone far away, those who had a hard-working childhood under the old thatched roof with the figure of a father and mother working hard day and night...

Whether growing in the corner of the garden or on the banks of the ditch, riverbank... whether it is eggplant, eggplant, goat eggplant or wild eggplant, the eggplant flower is still faithfully purple. The purple color of the eggplant flower is lighter than Hue purple , and not as deep purple as the color of the morning glory flowers climbing on the fences and hedges around the garden. Therefore, people often call it purple heart eggplant. That is a gentle purple color, a fragile purple but haunts people's hearts...

The lilac flowers are not gorgeous and elegant, nor do they have a rich fragrance, so few people pick them to enjoy. The flowers bloom calmly, with simple beauty in the March sun, swaying gently when the river winds blow over the fields and beaches. And as if to cherish and protect those small, pretty purple flowers, the tree spreads out its large, green, sturdy leaves to protect them day after day. Therefore, if you want to admire the lilac flowers, you have to step closer, bend down very close, as if whispering, as if confiding in a gentle heart...

Illustration photo. Source: Internet

And perhaps, eggplant flowers are born to produce fruit, for the meals of the country people in the days of the "eighth of March" harvest. Other flowers, when blooming, all point upwards to show off to the earth and sky. The gentle eggplant flower bends down, sometimes as if hiding itself shyly behind the leaves, only showing its yellow pistil to welcome the warm sunshine and butterflies and bees as friends. Therefore, all the preservation, thrift and tolerance of the flower is to look forward to the fruit picking. There are many types of eggplant, but the most familiar is still the white-fruited eggplant. The clusters of fruit are heavy, round, smooth and white, gradually growing, from the size of a marble, then the size of a small bowl, hanging from the branches towards the ground, evoking the fullness, warmth and simplicity of country meals...

The eggplants were planted with seeds that had been saved from the previous year. Mother usually chose the roundest and largest eggplants, marking them for use as seeds. She waited until the end of the season, when the eggplants were old and ripe, their skins had thickened and hardened, and they had turned a fragrant yellow color, then picked them, tied them into bunches, and hung them in the kitchen. Day after day, month after month, the smoke from the straw helped the eggplant seeds dry up, but inside were many plump seeds, waiting anxiously for the day to germinate.

In December, when spring crept back, my mother took down the fruit clusters, split them open, and sowed the seeds in the small garden, covering them with a thin layer of straw. A few days later, the sprouts cracked open and confidently rose above the moist soil. When the plants had three leaves, my mother thinned them out and planted them in rows, about a meter apart. Fertilized with compost and watered daily, the eggplant plants grew quickly, sprouting branches and spreading their green canopy to cover the long bed of soil. Then, from the leaf tips, flower stalks grew out, sprouting clusters of buds, and then into clusters of tiny purple flowers, shy in the early morning sun...

Purple lilac has entered proverbs, folk songs, and people's hearts for many generations. Therefore, the color purple has become the name for a particular color. It is the purple round-neck shirt hugging the round shoulders, it is the purple hat strap fluttering in the dreams of many young men of that time... gently stirring our souls...

Tran Van Loi

Source: https://baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202504/tim-tim-hoa-ca-2225402/