Eggplants
Solanum melongena from the Solanaceae (nightshade) family. Related to the potato, capsicum, tomato, tobacco plant, deadly nightshade, tamarillo, et al. Known as an aubergine or a brinjal in some parts of the world. Native to eastern Asia.
I don't have a scanner at the moment at which to scan in photos of my own plants, so I've leached the photos found at Wikipedia's entry for the vegetable. These pictures are copyrighted under the terms of the GNU general public license and are not my own.
What initially attracted me into growing these was their pretty green-purple foliage. I've only semi-sort of been a fan of the vegetable itself, and despite all the ways to cook it, I've just like grilling it sliced up in some butter.
Of all the vegetables and fruits we've tried to grow, it's been the eggplant that has been a total success. We bought eight seedlings from a nursery and I made the mistake of not reading the spacing requirements for them, so now I have eight closely bunched-up eggplants all cosily growing together. It hasn't hurt them though, and none of the plants are starving for light.
They are prolific fruiters. To date, we've collected close to 50-60 vegetables from all eight plants and they show no signs of letting up on flowering. We live in Casino here in Australia, which is sub-tropical in climate and rarely frosts, so they may last for a few months yet. They are a warm-weather plant and will not tolerate frosts or colder climates.
Our eggplants have been relatively disease free. I've noticed no real bugs or fungus or anything else predating upon them, which is more than I can say for the poor capsicums (bell peppers) we grew nearby. We're growing two varieties of tomato in the same patch as the eggplants, and they're flourishing.
I heartily recommend growing them as they seem to be a hardy and productive plant. They make an attractive little shrub too with their moderately large leaves. Be mindful of the spines around the top of the calyx and stem of the fruit as they will stab you.
Every website I've seen says to grow them from seedlings, not seeds, so check them out at your nursery.