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Growing Mondays: Growing requires context
Don't try to emulate 30-second growing videos.
Jo Hunter Adams
January 12, 2026
Hi! I'm Jo, writing from Heart & Soil homestead, a 1-acre homestead in the Far South of Cape Town, South Africa. Every week I share inspiration and education for your growing journey. Thanks so much for reading!
Welcome to Growing Mondays, where I talk about growing- vegetables, fruits, animals and, well, people.
The wonder of a second crop of surprise onions. I thought they were red spring onions…
So much hinges on very small things.
We are in an age of disconnect and short attention spans. The solution to our life’s problems has to be delivered in a thirty-second video.
Yet our lives are nested in an incredibly complex context. It’s not whether the proposal in the latest gardening video works, it’s whether it works in our climate, in our lives, year after year after year. It’s whether it attracts rats or helps us eat better, and if that eating better actually translates to feeling better and moving forward in our precious, fragile lives.
Sourdough pita bread has become our favourite way to eat a bunch of different vegetables…
There are no quick fixes to connecting to our food, to growing and eating. Our progress may be fast at first, then slow, then fast again. The input delivered in 30-second video may be super helpful.
Yet growing requires a hundred different skills, and integrating all those skills is highly contextual. While other people’s experiences can encourage us, it is ultimately our own context that we have to navigate.
Don’t worry if things don’t work like on Youtube, or if they do and then you don’t have time to eat the food you grow. Everything is a normal part of the journey. The hope is that we stay open, keep learning, and keep growing.
We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do small things with great love.
When Eugene arrives at afternoon snack time empty-handed, to fix the fence.
Kei apple bread! With 10 kei apples in each loaf…
Workshops
17 January 1-2:30 Sourdough Bread baking |
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