What We Inherit Without Realising

Welcome to my Journal, a space where I share the stories, observations and questions that don’t always fit inside a recipe. Here, food is often the starting point, but the conversations usually lead somewhere deeper; to memory, culture, identity and the ways our lives are shaped over time.

What We Inherit Without Realising is a journal where I reflect on something I never expected. It’s a story about growing food, childhood resistance and the surprising ways we carry pieces of those who came before us, often without noticing.

I hope this journal entry encourages you to pause, reflect and perhaps recognise something you’ve inherited too.

There are things we spend years resisting, only to find ourselves choosing them later.

Has that ever happened to you?

For me, it was growing food.

If you’d told me as a child that one day I’d be checking on tomato plants before breakfast, I would’ve laughed.

Back then, watering the garden felt like one of the biggest chores in the world.

My parents grew things. There was always something planted. Corn, peppers, indigenous vegetables and whatever the season had to offer.

My dad would ask me to water the garden and I’d drag the hose behind me, counting down the minutes until I could go back to playing.

I couldn’t understand why anyone would spend so much time looking after plants that seemed to take forever to grow.

We watch our parents or grandparents do things without ever asking why.

We grow up surrounded by routines that feel ordinary, mundane, and sometimes frustratingly inconvenient.

Then, years later, we catch ourselves doing those very same things.

This is my third year growing food.

The photograph above is from last year’s harvest. This year I’m doing it all over again, this time with a little more knowledge and hopefully, a few fewer mistakes.

In our Venda home, working the land was never treated as a grand lesson in heritage or tradition. It wasn’t romanticised. It was just life.

These days, I pay attention to the weather.

I look for the first flowers.

I plan meals around what’s ready to harvest. I water the garden, even when nothing seems to be changing.

The things we inherit rarely announce themselves.

They simply become part of the way we live.