A tomato called Beefsteak?

The first time I heard the  name I definitely went "huh"! What a name for a tomato. But as time and more gardening went by, I definitely got fascinated by this variety and wanted to try growing it myself. These are large sized tomatoes where each fruit can be really large and heavy if it grows well. As luck would have it, my first one was a double one with 2 flowers/fruits stuck together :).

Strawberry flowers appearing at last - this plant has produced a lot of runners and covered a large surface area in a few months, now it is turning its energies to producing flowers, and I'm looking forward to the lovely strawberries in a few weeks!

After months of waiting for yellow zucchinis, at last my plant has produced 3 of them, and I'm hoping the trend will continue. Wish me luck!

My newest tomatoes.. and some pest strategies

My terrace is under attack! First it was aphids, and though they were slightly reduced by a couple of applications of neem spray, they keep coming back in renewed numbers :(. The other culprit (and I HATE these critters) are the mealy bugs.. from dampness to the plant not being strong enough - there could be many reasons for this infestation. I am still trying to figure out what to do for this, and am hoping the latest suggestion of watered down whisky will help with this - for the plants, not me ;).

All the pests have made me less enthusiastic about clicking snaps of my garden, but today I took my camera along and looked around for something to cheer me up. These are the first flowers on my beefsteak tomato plants, and the size of the flower is hopefully an indicator to the tomato itself ;)

The other newly blooming plant is a cherry tomato variety, given to me by a friend, a lady famous for her jams :). Looking forward to seeing yellow cherry tomatoes from this one soon!

Posted for Day 11 of the Marathon Bloggers challenge.