red & orange (& blue)
by mikka
The tomato plants have started growing like crazy lately! We've even been able to pick a few red and orange cherry tomatoes. I've never liked cherry tomatoes before, but I love the taste of these ones.
Unfortunately, the insects like my garden just as much as I do, and the caterpillars in particular have descended like a plague of locusts, annihilating entire nasturtium and arugula plants and happily destroying basil plant after basil plant. There's also something out there that loves eating my tomato plant leaves. It's pretty gutting, and while I try to be zen about it, it totally makes me want to cry in ways that are very embarrassing, or at the very least to smash the caterpillars I do catch in a fury of blind vengeance for destroying all my hard work (though I don't, because smashed caterpillars are disgusting).
Above: the last of the strawberries.
Despite the bugs and the recent rain, the garden is still my favorite place in the apartment, and I am capable of spending way too much time sitting outside (armed with a mosquito coil) listening to audiobooks and knitting:
Above: Right now I'm one sleeve and one front side away from finishing this cardigan, because nothing makes you think of heavy wool and sweaters more than a muggy Japanese summer! Pretty yarn is courtesy of my stepfather, as atonement for destroying my much-loved hand-knitted Owls sweater in the dryer this January.
Possibly somewhat over-ambitiously, I am hoping to knit six sweaters by December 31st (including the mostly-finished Vivian cardigan I started way back in December and then put down.) Last year I made four sweaters, two of which were fit to be worn in public, so I'm hoping to improve on that track record this time around. Fortunately, Iain doesn't seem to mind stepping over the multitude of yarn balls that find their way all around the apartment. I try to make up for both the mess and my occasionally (OK, constantly) missing details while we watch TV due to knitting by making him stuff too:
... although who knows when he'll actually want to wear this. It is *miserably* hot right now, which is why I am writing about wool rather than doing anything so disgusting as actually touching it.
