Growing for the long haul

My most important asset is that I’ve grown seriously for nine years, and less seriously for another 9 years before that. That’s pretty much all. Experience and keeping going.

Each year the first zucchini signals the beginning of a summer wave. At best I’ll be riding along in a fantastic rush, at worst I’ll be spluttering. Our tomatoes aren’t all trellised, and there’s always too much to do. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Yet most of the prep work has already happened, and now there’s also an invitation to a different, celebratory feel. Most of our success depends on what we did much earlier in the season- how beds were prepared and composted, and whether the irrigation was checked. Now, the focus is on making sure we harvest, eat (and sometimes preserve), and marvel at the glory of it all.

I meet a lot of growers who say that their growing efforts became a bit too much, so they cut back a lot and now just grow a few things, or nothing at all.

My dream is to keep growing at homestead scale for a long time, because that’s where deep insights come and where our influence compounds. At least for me, in the summer season, the key to this long-term dream is savouring the harvest and not sweating about disease or imperfections or the tide of insects I know will arrive in January.

It’s not about one season or one plant, it’s about compounding our experience and skills, and finding new ways to live in a changing world. What was difficult five years ago is habit now, which allows me to grow more interesting heirlooms, and even save more seed.

Hoping we can all lean into joy this time of year. Here’s to summer!

Summer growing 3 Nov 10-11:30 R250 (4 spaces left!) This workshop will show the messy reality of our summer growing. I'm hoping this will be encouraging and hopeful, and we'll spend a lot of time just walking around seeing how I approach various crops, and how those approaches might be similar or different in your context. Because ultimately, you are the specialist of your own space.