Tomato Harvest

Tomato Harvest

Its been a HOT week

Well its SUMMER in Sacramento. We all know it when we talk about the temperature in the 100s. And when it takes hard work to cross the street at 4 pm.

Nothing much developing in my garden these days, expect for the Jasmine.I don’t have pictures of the bell pepper harvest which amounted to 4 peppers.

There were a couple of cherry tomatoes that we ate off the plant so I don’t have pictures of them as well, but I did take a picture of the Okra.

Thought I would share some flora from my vacation in Peru as well.

Okra

National Flower of Peru

Begonias in the Jungle

Corn

Coffee Beans

I really liked that plant with the red leaves

Peruvian Veggies

Natural Dyes from Plants

I do not know the names of some of the plants above. Expert Opinions as well as speculations are welcomed.

Surviving the 2 week Vacation

And the plants did pretty well.

The watering solution:

I used plant nanny ceramic spikes with wine and plastic bottles, watered the plants really well  and for terrcotta pots made sure the outside of the pots were wet too. I then wrapped all the terracotta pots with black plastic garbage bags with some water at the bottom. I used some of the bags as mulch for the plastic pots as well.

And I came back to find bell peppers and tomatoes as well as chrysanthemums (?).

Wrapping the pots in Garbage bags

Bell Peppers

Bell Pepper

More Bell Peppers

Chrysanthemums

Tomatoes

Eggplants in the earthbox

Events in the Garden this Saturday

There are what I think to be spider mites on the fuchsia(After spending sometime on Google). They completely killed the mint that was right next to the fuchsia. I  noticed the signs, but I just thought it was because it has been so hot here lately.The fuchsia flowers were dropping at a faster rate the past 3 days. Usually there is a hummingbird that visits the fuchsia every morning and he did not come because there were no flowers.

Last evening I decided to have a look and found the mint to be gone completely. I have salvaged the fuchsia and sprayed the Neem oil concoction on it. I am hoping it will survive.

Fuchsia leaves with Spider mite trouble

On a happier note , the black eyed susan is blooming:

Black Eyed Susan

And here are the Bell peppers:

Bell Peppers

Sunflowers, Marigolds, Jasmine

Here they are:

Marigolds

Sunflowers

Star Jasmine

Jasmine

Vacation Watering Update

The vacation watering apparatus is working quite well, looking at the wet soil around the plant. It has a small ceramic cone that goes into the soil in which you fill in water and close it with the green mushroom-like lid. The tube attachment from the lid goes into a water container.

Automatic Plant Waterer

Automatic Plant Waterer at work

I am also trying out the plant nanny with the water bottle attachment. This one has a ceramic cone and a green spike that attaches to the bottles. The green spike fits into the ceramic cone.

Plant Nanny

So far so good.

Although I still have some more plants to vacation water. Drip Watering from buddygarden seems interesting, I want to try it out.

Baby tomatoes and Bell Pepper flowers

So the tomato plants from last year have already started flowering and i can see the first baby tomato:

Baby Tomato

And the Bell Pepper flowers are out too:

Bell Pepper Flowers

This is one of 4 plants I had from last year and they have survived winter pretty well. The new blossoms do get aphids. This year I am trying Neem Oil on the leaves and so far it has been working pretty well.

Its Wet!

It has been raining here the past couple of days. So I am not able to take any cool pictures of how the vacation watering apparatus is working, but since I got my new camera this weekend ;Here are some shots of the garden in rain:

Flowers in rain

Beans

Veggies

Cilantro Sprouts

Okra

Talking about containers

I always thought that terracotta pots were the only way to grow plants because thats all I had seen in India. So when I started out , I planted only in terracotta. They look great and are definitely closer to nature.
But then last spring, my Dad saw the ever increasing number of pots in the garden. He then asked me if I thought the balcony would fall down with the weight. It did seem like a possibility, if I kept adding more plants in Terracotta containers.
So I switched to buying plastic containers. I really love them!
Terracotta is heavy,plastic a whole lot lighter, so I can buy bigger pots.
Water evaporates a lot in terracotta, I need to water every single day even in Spring. Plastic not so. I have watered the plants in plastic pots only once a week so far and the temperature here did go up into the 90s a week ago.
So as part of my Vacation Watering plan, I was thinking I should probably cover the terracotta pots along the sides with plastic.

I also own an Earthbox now. It is much larger than what I had imagined when I saw pictures online.
But I think I am officially out of space, as declared by the census taker (my husband ) who counted everything and announced that the season for planting has closed. I have permission from him to plant just 2 more eggplants out there this weekend in plastic pots. No Space for the Earthbox!

What kind of containers do you prefer?

Garden Update!

The Spinach is doing well in the window boxes

The carrots and pole beans have sprouted

The Yellow Jasmine is flowering, I bought it last year from Logee’s greenhouses.

The bitter gourd is growing pretty well; And the Eggplants are ready to be transplanted outside.

Carrots and Beans

Carrots and Beans

Yellow Jasmine

Yellow Jasmine

Spinach

Eggplants – indoors

Bitter Gourd