Dear Rain God, Please stop the rain.

The rain will not stop, which means everything is water logged and tired from processing so much water. It's rough being a newly formed bean and having to weather the storms of a Chicago summer. Whew.

On the upside though we harvested our very first tomato!! It was a small and perfectly ripe Oregon Spring Tomato and tasted amazing. We will definitely be keeping that on our list for planting next year. The bush it came off of is producing flowers and fruit like crazy, despite the chilly temperatures that have been drifting through here, which means that soon you will see rooftop tomatoes gracing the menu at the restaurant. So exciting!

The arugula is loving being covered by the new row cover fabric, it's proving to be very helpful in keeping the harsh sun and beating rain from taking out the fresh little sprouts. I am also using the row covers on our new carrots, beets, and radishes, hoping it will speed along their growth. Due to the weather being in flux constantly with high and low temperatures some of our earlier planted tomatoes failed miserably, and we had to take them out of the planters and compost them. (This is where I cry.) In their place we planted some heirloom summer squash, a green Italian long neck variety and an Early Prolific variety that is yellow. We also planted some Tigger Melons, which according to the package are striped with yellow and neon red! Then we decided that we would try a few smaller varieties of pumpkins (Jack Be Little and Lil' Pump'ke'mon) and try to trellis them. I am hoping that I get a chance to make little hammocks for them to sit in as they grow, like they do in Japan. I think that is super cute and creative and I'll probably make them just to see them all relaxing in their slings. Around all the squash we planted three different varietals of bush beans: Three Color, Haricot Vert and Roc d'Or, all look delicious, but we'll see what the results are next month.

This week we are readying ourselves for the Dedication and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony that will occur on Saturday morning. The mayor is set to arrive at 11:15 and will dedicate our rooftop farm! I wish we could make this open to the public, but the response would be so great that we wouldn't be able to fit that many people on the roof! There will be pictures and video that I will post here next week, so stay tuned to see the ribbon get cut.