I keep a journal to track Tower Garden events - everything from checking Ph to adding nutrients to spotting new growth and pruning. The month of June reads more like an archive of metereology.

Week One: Rain. Cloudy skies.
Week Two:  Intermittent sun.
Weeks Three and Four: Heavy, fierce rain and flooding from Tropical Storm Debby.

Now if I were gardening in soil, it's likely most of my crop would be damaged after nearly three weeks of intense rainfall. Water-soaked roots would be suffocating and bacterial wilt would be effectively killing these fruits.

As I inspect my Tower Garden this morning, I see no such damage or wilt. Instead, I see an abundance of blooms! If anything, my tomatoes need pruning. This is yet another wonder of soil-less Tower Gardening. The vertical farm keeps on growing, immune to the rainy days of June.

It's rampant! Wild! A glorious living wonder!

Today, I found my first squash blossom, a buttery yellow bloom shooting off from a just-planted seedling.

My Tower Garden is in its glory! The squash blossom was just the start.

Chives have spurted a good inch overnight. The razor edge fancy lettuce is keeping apace. And there are tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes! Little cherry tomatoes like gems. The bigger beefsteaks nestled among cucumber leaves. I love how the Tower Garden can become a tangled mess, and that is to say I have the choice of pruning and snipping or allowing the growth to run its natural course. I pick plan B.

The cucumbers, the first bloomers, are snarled and slightly battered from the rain and Tropical Storm Beryl, and their leaves are a map of snail trails. But they continue to bloom! I am amazed.

I am in love with my Tower Garden.

Now, as harvest time nears, I must begin seeding for the next cycle. This is all so exciting.

The Sun is missing from this Sunday.  It's Day 11 of uninterrupted rain and clouds.

Every morning, I visit my Tower Garden and every morning, I discover new growth! Even with the absence of direct sunlight, things are happening. The tomatoes are especially active, and this brings me to a quandary.

With dirt farming, the standard procedure is to snip the suckers that branch off from the main tomato plant stems to encourage robust growth. I am not sure if this standard carries over to hydroponic farming. But I'm finding bud development on the suckers! I've come to the conclusion that there is plenty enough circulating nutrients to feed the suckers. So I'm snipping conservatively. My focus is to prevent rampant growth that might interfere with productivity. I'm also clipping where I see heavy overlap to prevent any rotting leaves.

Quandary solved.