We nearly received an inch of rain at the garden Friday night. This was the first decent rain we have had in over a month. Most of the storms have gone north or south of Chicago.

With the recent warm weather a lot of the veggies have really taken off, especially the vegetables and herbs in the earthboxes on the Museum steps. We removed some of the flowering kale that was infested with the imported cabbageworm and planted sweet corn and zucchini. The imported cabbageworm attacked our collards, kale, cauliflower and broccoli. We removed the kale, brocolli and cauliflower since they were past their prime and we will remove the cabbageworms by hand and hit them with Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, a non-toxic control that paralyzes the digestive system of the worm and it dies in a few days from starvation.

Hector, our garden cat was back. He was a lot braver today. He hangs out near the sewer grate in the garden and will dart into the sewer when scared. If he is not in the sewer, he hangs out in the parsley along the north wall of the Museum. He must be very hungry because he happily lapped up a puddle of my V-8 juice that I poured on the concrete slab in the garden.

We harvested a few golden zucchini today and some of the parsley. We do have a few peppers starting to develop. We have caged a couple of the tomato plants and will be putting up additional support for the tomatoes this comimg week.

We had our first sighting of a celebrity at the Smart Home on Saturday. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, toured the Smart Home. He was at the Museum for a lecture.