- Heart & Soil Newsletter
- Posts
- Growing Mondays
Growing Mondays
Each season is precious: try fast, fail fast, try again fast
Jo Hunter Adams
September 02, 2024
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 share ideas to help you grow edible and medicinal plants.
The question which must be addressed is not how to care for the planet, but how to care for each of the planet’s millions of human and natural neighbourhoods…each of its millions of small pieces and parcels of land, each of which is in some precious and exciting way different from all the others
Wendell Berry
At least I started our luffa’s indoors.
Every growing season is weird and precious
The weather is changing. I’m smug about getting my spring crops in early, but this winter has been so cold and wet that my cucumbers and zucchini seed rotted in the ground! I’ve planted more cucurbit seeds, this time hedging my bets by starting some indoors as well.
The planting season is a good way of coming to terms with our own mortality. In midlife, it can be hard to be conscious of how much time I have left. In tomato seasons it’s clearer. If I’m very lucky, I have 40 tomato seasons left. I can count to 40 and imagine what that looks like.
In these terms, every season is precious. Yes, start slowly and don’t take on too much. And also, don’t worry if your first attempt fails. We have a VERY long growing season. You can just plant again and again and again, THIS season. Whether from seeds or seedlings.
Investing time and energy in understanding your tiny spot on earth is worth your resources. Try fast, fail fast, try again fast. Not a frenzied fast, but just don’t give up on a crop or a season, because so often you’ll get it right on the tenth try.
This time of year in our area, you can plant almost any veg:
Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, all leafy veg in shady/cool spots.
Tomatoes, peppers, brinjal, zucchini, butternut in warm spots. You can even plant butternut directly into your compost pile.
peppers from saved seed is just emerging. Purchased pepper seeds have not emerged.
I’ve reduced our number of workshops! I want to focus on noticing and adapting to this vegetable growing season, and helping our community adjust as much as I can.
Raising Dairy Goats 14 Sept 10-11:30 R200
Summer growing part 2 3 Nov 10-11:30 R250
Reply