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Growing when we hit a bump
Getting started changes everything
Jo Hunter Adams
August 19, 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. The last few days have been challenging so Growing Mondays arrives on a Tuesday. But it’s here, and we’ll keep on growing together!
May your sadness sweeten your anger until it is transformed into the energy of love
Hana with pasta (big thanks to Selwyn for photos)
So sorry our Monday email is arriving on a Tuesday!
On Friday, the City of Cape Town released a new draft spatial plan for our area. In it, they called for the “urgent acquisition” of the area where we live, to relocate people from a section of our neighbouring informal settlement and make way for road construction. Roads. Uggh. Not a good reason to lose what feels like everything, right?
I like to think I’m pretty resilient, but this is one event that always makes me spiral and go into frenzied action mode. I say always, because we’ve been facing this for a while, so there have been a few spirals.
Jersey 2.0 because she looks exactly like her dad, Jersey.
But then the spiral gives way to perspective, and a sense that we’re privileged, safe and fed right here right now.
The babies are so playful already
My little doom spiral is very normal- life is always hard, for different reasons for different people. For many people life is much much harder than ours. And the thing is, the previous difficult experiences I’ve had actually helps. I know it’ll pass, and all will be well.
In the midst of it, it helps to do one small thing, and maintain our rhythms. Chatting with customers on the weekend. Baking bread. Swimming. Planting. Petting goats. It leaves less room for fear, anger, and frenzied action, and more space for calm.
If you’re going through similar, keep growing. One seed a day, one tree, nothing big. We build our identities as resilient, and then that starts to be true. Here’s to growing together, and here’s to a wonderful week.
Workshops
6 Sep 9-10:30 Veg growing workshop I’m slowing down a little on topic-related workshops for this year, as we plan our NPO and how to share our learning and systems more broadly. 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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