For the last couple of months, my work on the revised, illustrated and MASSIVELY expanded 2nd edition of Create Your Own Florida Food Forest has been on hold.

No longer.

This week I will plow through the rest of the writing and get back to the many artists who have sent in illustrations over the last few months. My inbox is stuffed with emails I haven’t had time to answer, both from artists and from readers and viewers. It’s a 2-month backlog and it’s going to take time to catch up.

The final edition of the book should have something like 150 illustrations. It has blown up from a 14,000 word booklet to a 70,000 word epic. I am working on the last couple of chapters now, then I will have to sort and number all the illustrations I’ve received and make sure I have proper credit for all the artists – and in doing so, I’ll also find out what illustrations are still missing from the plant lists so I can assign them to new or existing artists. Doing a book like this takes quite a bit of work but it is very satisfying to create a good resource for Florida gardeners AND fill it with a gallery of excellent botanical art from around the world.

I love food forests – and if you share that love, this book is for you.

On a related tack, I am also finished with the first draft of GARDEN HEAT: A Jack Broccoli Novel. It needs some more work, but it is close. The cover by Jeremiah Humphries is already finished and it is awesome!

Once CYOFFF v2 is done, Jack is next. Heck, maybe next week.