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Growing Mondays: You can do it!
Celebrate your successes, add a new skill
Jo Hunter Adams
September 08, 2025
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. This week I talk about the value of celebrating the wins of the previous season, and reflecting on the new skills you want to build this season. This week we founded the Heart & Soil Agroecology Hub NPC! We’re still filing our NPO papers. We’re so grateful to all of the people who made this possible, particularly our board and advisory committee. Here’s to growth together!
You can't win the day if you don't feel the day. As you get small wins in life you have to integrate those wins into your identity and know that you're a strong person.
One of my favourite parts of farming where we do is that people come and talk to us, and talk about their successes and perceived failures.
Recently, a few people mentioned they had a hard growing winter, followed by “but we had plenty of spinach!” And my response has been, “how cool is that?!” Even during a hard winter, where you were super busy, you still grew and ate home grown spinach!!!!”
Daikon flowers. Daikon is one of our biggest seed saving experiments, because daikon is sometimes hard to source here.
If you can congratulate yourself on small wins, and articulate exactly how you want to grow this season, it’s much more likely to happen. If you can write it down, even better!
As humans we are meant to learn and grow. Here are some ideas:
If you’ve never had success growing from seed, consider direct seeding carrots, beetroot, radish, and any old seed you have. This time of year, a lot will grow by direct seedings. Carrots will often grow in soil where other things struggle.
If you’re growing things in trays, consider flat trays where you “prick out” after seedlings have grown their first true leaves. Flat trays are more forgiving for germination than small cell trays, especially when it comes to moisture.
Make a plan for water and compost now. Don’t wait until there’s pressure. Make a plan that works even in crisis.
Consider having goals for specific areas of your garden. For example, I’m hoping to improve in fully utilising our tunnel space, creating systems and cycles for moving things in and out of this protected space.
The function of ritual, as I understand it, is to give form to human life, not in the way of a mere surface arrangement, but in depth.
Consider ritualising certain practices related to eating or harvesting. These rituals tend to remain even when you hit busy times.
When you notice something clearly and see it vividly, it then becomes sacred.
May we all be inspired by all the flowers around us right now.
Workshops
If you have a company group or a group of family or friends that you’d like to learn composting, growing, chicken rearing, sourdough baking, cheesemaking or some other topic, let me know. It could be a fun way to connect with colleagues, friends and family. |
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