Harvest Monday and some blooms

The swiss chard plants that were planted in the ground were being eaten by some pests, so I decided to grow them in a container. They actually did well and this is what I harvested over the weekend.

Petunias with Coleus in a container:

A lonely african daisy:

Daylillies:

Tomato Progress

All of the tomato plants I bought are doing well inspite of the chilly CA weather. I have about 7 tomatoes on the plants and also some flowers. Hopefully the sun will be out soon but not too hot though :) The white stuff you see on the leaves is the diatomaceous earth powder. I sprinkled them everywhere to control the ear wigs, they were eating most of the plants. Marigolds and Swiss Chard are growing well now.

Gourd seedlings

I do not know what type of gourd seedlings are these but I am guessing bottle gourd. I sowed about 30-40 seeds from a combo packet that I bought from India and a few seedlings emerged. Will have to wait and see what they produce.

Have a lovely weekend!

My garlic experiment

I read in a few blogs on how easy garlic grows, so I planted some supermarket garlic in the fall around October. There are 2 varities of garlic, the supermarket garlic falls into soft neck variety. These can be kept for months. I harvested them on Saturday, the tops turned yellow and I thought it was time to harvest. In the hind sight, I think I should have waited till July :) One bulb was completely formed whereas the others were small. Anyway lesson learned. This fall I will buy the right variety from the nursery and try it out. Overall I am happy with my experiment and the kids had fun watching the process from planting the cloves to harvesting the bulbs. Here are some pictures.

Earlier harvest of Indian garlic: