And so it goes....

I'm having trouble keeping up with the blog.  Not that I don't have anything to say.  I just have too many hobbies!!!

I really love my garden, but by now, after months of excessive heat and drought, I'm ready for winter.  Seriously, I just said that.  I hate being cold, but come on!!  I am watering everyday, sometimes twice a day just to keep plants alive.  I escape the heat in the design studio for fun.  I literally have to run down the driveway to get to the studio because I feel like I am going to turn into some kind of french fry halfway there!!!  I never thought I'd find myself wishing for a hurricane, but a small one perhaps....Maybe just a CAT 1, for some rain.....

I've been learning over the last year or so to make authentic Indian food.  I'm not digressing, there is a point to this.  I grow what I eat.  Organically, with all the challenges of that.  I have discovered that Japanese eggplant can withstand the most unbearable conditions known to man, and thrive.  My tomatoes are long gone, but with absolutely no care, the eggplants are producing more fruit than I know what to do with.  Next summer, I'm growing everything that they grow in India.  No joke.  Okra. bring it on.  I'm even considering an entire patch of chickpeas for the spring. 

I thought I had basil figured out here.  The snails and worms had different ideas....OK, so I knew sweet Italian basil was a crop you grow to feed the snails, but when I discovered Genovese basil I thought I had this thing nailed. The pests are laughing at me.  Thai basil and lime basil are the only crops that have survived this biblical infestation.  Looking for new recipes now.....Sigh....

What the heck does any of this have to do with art or design.  Well, nothing and everything.  I'm still doing botanical illustration, and knitwear design.  The idea was that I would gaze out of the studio windows at the lovely English garden I planted....

My passion is plants.  I can't imagine doing without them.  As much work as it is.  And so it goes.  I'm spending four hours a day trying to save a lovely garden.  After four hours it's just too hot.  Hoping for a bit of rain here.....And fall.....