Past, Present and Pandameisje: My garden is flowering!!

I had a look at my garden today, and though I do that every evening when I water my plants with the current heat, I noticed many of my plants are flowering or will be soon!!

Flowering plants

second picture of my first courgette flower

first (male flower) and ...

Earlier this week I already had some flowers in my courgette. They were male (according to my book) so no fruits there, but all my courgettes are now developing flowers, and some seem female, that means there is a tiny courgette behind the flower!

And more pictures of my 3 courgette plants developing flowers!!

tiny buds for tiny courgette!

Courgette in front with 2 shrivelled flowers

This one seems to be female
(see the one on the left side)

And more plants are flowering, like my tiny cucumber plant.

Tiny cucumber with multiple flowers,
only one is visible

Tomatoes also look good, though shaped a bit weird, this branch with tiny tomatoes started lying on the ground because of the weight of all the fruits, I put it up when I discovered them.

And my potato plants have grown really fast since my last post, and as you can see in the picture, it is developing flowers as well

Potato, close up of flowers developing

Here some pictures of my potatoes growing, first three taken on July 3, 2012:

Taken July 8, 2012

Taken July 16, 2012

Taken today, July 26, 2012

And I have a new addition to my plants, this pepper plant came up very late, and I'm not sure it will get big enough, but we shall see...

Harvest

The tiny, but tasty, garlic

Second garlic bulb drying

I also harvested my second garlic bulb (the cause, probably, why the green flies/lice did not touch my vegetables, apparently they don't like garlic!) which is bigger than the previous one. I do have to say my tiny garlic cloves taste just as strongly as the bigger cloves!

And I am so excited to have just harvested my first carrot!! They are the parisian kind, which means they are short and stubby. I really like the looks of this one, and it also smells really carrot-ty!!

Look at this gorgeous carrot!

And the quest for my watering system...
I am looking for a system to water my plants when I am not there, however most watering systems are the drip kind that need electricity to power the dripping, and a water tap.
As I don't have either on my roof terrace, I looked around on the internet and found something called tropf Blumat (Dutch site). It only needs a water tank, no electricity or taps. I works with ceramic sensors that will open a valve to let in water when it gets to dry.
I went to the garden center to ask about it, as the only shop was closed for holidays, and ordering in Germany makes it even more expensive. The shipping fees are so high!! They employee called another one and he laughed at me, saying there is no such thing without a water tap, and if there is it is huge...
So they were not going to be helpful, thus on with my search online...
I found out the things are very popular among weed (cannabis) growers.. and that led me to a breeding center in my city that sells the stuff! So I had to get over my scruples to go to an actual grow shop to get it, but hey it's in my city and a shop so why not?
I went there today, felt kind of weird, but they were nice. Unfortunately he did not have them in stock, but he will be ordering. I also asked him how many of the sensors he think I will need, he said that would depend on the amount of plants. He promised me to ask the blumat (german/english site) people about how many I would need with my current set up.

Here are some more old and newer pictures of my vegetables and other plants growing