Diary of my Country life-June 19th, 2026

The original source of this blog: https://www.lotusandmichael.com/blogs/diary-of-my-country-life

06/19/2026 Friday 67-83F Partly Cloudy

My vegetable bed is starting to look good. From west to east, I planted tomatoes, garlic chives, basil, onions, ginger and loofah. Tomato plants are happily growing; two tomatoes already show a lovely orange color—the sign of ripeness. Though I planted tomatoes in the last three summers, this year I managed them differently. My tomatoes are cherry, indeterminate tomatoes; in the past I just planted them in the soil, covered them with net so deer wouldn’t munch on them; then we watered them every day, watching them grow, ripen. Under that circumstance, each tomato plant could grow into a jungle and as tall as seven feet. Every time I picked the ripe ones, I had to duck into the jungle and be very cautious of not stepping on the vine or any physical contact with worms. The happy harvests had turned into exhaustion. I figured that I must have done something wrong because other’s tomato plants I saw online looked quite discreet and in order; what’s more, each bunch of fruit displayed on the branches was so easy to reach which made the harvest a breeze. 

So I started to learn how to plant tomatoes from the very beginning, after three years’ wrong procedure. Keep pinching the unwanted shoots was the core to control the size of the plant as well as to maximize the yield. I took action right away. Now standing behind the net, my first two tomato plants look very neat; with the saved space, I planted another eight tomato plants, of which I plan to keep their main stems only. It is also a sort of experiment: I want to see which way, one plant of four branches, or four single-stemmed plants, can produce more fruit. 

A similar method applies to my loofah plants as well. Last year I planted two loofahs, which massively took up my whole northern fence both on our side and our neighbor’s. Though the neighbor was very kind and said that they loved to watch our loofahs grow, we decided to discipline our plants this season—trim them throughout their growth. My four loofah plants, each will remain with two branches; once the branch grows out loofah gourds, I will cut off the head so it will sprout new shoots. I have built a two-tiered, more than forty-feet long trellis for the loofahs (suppose each tier for one branch). Let’s see how far each one will run, and how many gourds I can get this year.

The philosophy I have learnt from my tomato and loofah planting is that: Growing a plant is like having a child-giving it life is just the first step; tending and caring it daily from every aspect (in our cases just watering isn’t enough) are also important because you wish the best for it. It’s a very simple philosophy; perhaps so simple that I took it for granted. 

As a home gardener, I am my plants’ mother. A plant can’t speak, can’t move. All its mood or health condition reflects on its leaves and posture. As its mother, if I am too careless to see, or too impatient to take it seriously, the plant will have to suffer. I have a small patch of lilies. This spring I moved them into my front flower bed and built a tent around them to protect them. A while ago I noticed there were red beetles on them and some leaves had holes, HOWEVER, I ignored it. I thought the beetles might be good. Then several days ago I happened to find that my lilies had troubles—their flower buds wilted, some were bitten. More and more holes in the leaves and the beetles were still there. 

I started to search on the internet. These beetles’ name is Scarlet Lily Beetles; they are very harmful to lilies and can cause the plants’ death. Spraying neem oil onto them can help.

My neem oil right stood on the shelf in my garage, covered under dust. I made the spray; several beetles were killed within one minute after the spray; and it was not hard to tell that all the others would turn their lives in soon—I smashed some of them with a pine bark. 

Again, a new lesson was just learnt: Had I spared several minutes to look into the beetles when I first saw them, I could have eliminated them from my lilies long ago then I wouldn’t lose the flowers, and most importantly, my lilies wouldn’t have suffered.

The day before when I chatted with my sister, she asked me from where I learnt planting since my parents had never encouraged us to do this. I told her: “Keep trying; keep learning; keep restarting if you fail.”

Many people like to have an instant, low-maintainenance garden. While the truth is, you will get what you “pay” for. Good things always take more effort and longer time to really see the value; there’s no shortcut in life.

Today is Dragon-boat Day. For the first time I successfully made my “Zongzi” (a traditional food for this day which is mainly made with sweet rice wrapped in Bamboo leaves). I wrapped jujubes in each Zongzi; the flavor was pretty good, though some aesthetic improvements need to be made. I think I will do better next time. Keep improving 💪🏻.