Life Overseas: Fun Stories about Growing Vegetables in the American Backyard

Life Overseas: Fun Stories about Growing Vegetables in the American Backyard Friends asked: What else have you been doing recently? My answer was a little hesitant and a little embarrassed: &#82…

Friends asked: What else have you been doing recently?

My answer was a little hesitant and a little embarrassed: "I'm busy growing vegetables!"

A few days ago, a neighbor's old lady came to my house and she went to our backyard. There were rows of leeks and dense beans in the vegetable field. We had put in a lot of effort, and we fully expected to get a few words of affirmation. However, when the old lady saw that some weeds had crawled in between the two vegetable fields separated by red bricks near the wall, she gave her some serious instructions. The tour guide said: "This doesn't look like planting vegetables. You have to hurry up and weed it."

We just relaxed a little and worked less in the back garden, and others noticed that we were lazy, so we quickly said: "Yes, yes, tomorrow I just pull the weeds and fertilize them.”

Living in this southern American city, many Chinese people will soon open up a small piece of land in their backyard to plant some fruits and vegetables for their own entertainment and to help with the decorations on the table. Ever since we moved into our own small building, my wife has often gone to the backyard to inspect the backyard before cooking in the evening, and then cut a handful of green onions or pick a pot of green vegetables. The vegetables grown by one's own hands taste really fresh and delicious. I joked that it was still too late to decide which vegetable to use until the fire was lit.

There is a saying in ancient poetry: "The cherries are red and the bananas are green." Frustrated scholar-bureaucrats had to escape into the mountains and become people in the mountains in order to escape the burdens of the world. Today, I am waiting in a corner of this big city, and I can enjoy the leisurely and wild fun of "red tomatoes, green cucumbers", and I can be considered content and content with the situation.

After dinner, we often take a walk in the neighborhood. Among the rows of houses, it is easy to identify which house is home to Chinese people, because as long as you approach their backyards, the wooden fence with loofah, cucumber, bitter melon, winter melon and other vegetables crawling on it must be where the Chinese live.

Some people may ask, what is the meaning of growing vegetables? In the past, I couldn't explain why. Growing vegetables is really not as good as buying vegetables. A whole piece of grass in the yard has to be dug up; after planting vegetables, a lot of water needs to be poured when the weather is hot, and even the water bill is enough to buy vegetables; and I have to run to the store from time to time to buy processed bags of cow dung and other fertilizers. Only later did I slowly realize its benefits and fun: first of all, it promoted neighborhood interactions. In this single-family community, many neighbors have never interacted with each other. Sometimes they don’t even know who lives next door or across the street. Some neighbors can’t speak to each other even a few words a year. But it's different when you grow vegetables. You and your Chinese neighbors have more topics to talk about. If you have melon seeds, vegetable seedlings and seedlings, you can exchange what you have and share some pots with your neighbors for them to plant. The second step is to move your muscles and exercise your body. This farm work can be tiring, and you will be sweating in a while. You will also save the cost of going to the gym to exercise. Even though the neighbors are politely approving each other's gardens and vegetable plots, they are secretly competing vigorously. So, if you want to see the lively scene of "communal members working together on farming", please come to our "private plots".

Imagine this situation: you are busy sowing and watering like a farmer or gardener. The tulips have faded and the roses are blooming. Tomatoes and cucumbers have sprouted. The rapeseed is still small here, and the leeks are growing there.上了一天的班，晚饭后，提上一桶水，拿上一把锹，走到自家小院耕耘”自留地”。 At this time, the sky was getting late, the sunset was shining on the west courtyard, the tired birds were returning to their nests in the trees, and there was a hint of summer in the breeze. The wife is helping to pull weeds, while the son is playing with a water gun, aiming at the newly grown peaches hanging in the air and spraying water... It is rare to have half a day of leisure in a floating life. At this time, your heart is happy, what else is there to be dissatisfied with?

The vegetable fields are full of melons and vines, and are frequently watered. Therefore, in the dark and humid environment, mosquitoes and the like inevitably tend to gather. If we stay in the vegetable field for a while, we will often get bitten by mosquitoes, causing us to suffer a lot before we even get to eat the vegetables. In order to prevent mosquitoes, my wife once put on long clothes and long trousers and a straw hat on a hot day, looking fully equipped. The neighbor was full of wine and food, wearing a short shirt and shorts, shaking a fan in his hand, taking a walk to cool off. Seeing how she was dressed, I quickly asked her why she was like this on such a hot day. My wife knew that I was watching from the other side of the bank about the performance art that was so rampant in China, which can be said to be "copycat". No one listened to me if I wanted to express my opinions, so she replied jokingly: "I am learning performance art!"

Western proverb goes: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence", that is to say, when cattle eat grass, they always feel that the grass outside the fence is more tender and greener. But when we were planting vegetables, looking at the green seedlings, long melon vines, and heavy fruits, we suddenly felt a joyful feeling like "the production captain celebrates the harvest." From the window upstairs, I looked at the courtyard of another house outside the wooden fence. Although it was also lush and lush, with red flowers and green fruits, but just like the Chinese farmers, I still felt confident that "the crops are my own good." I couldn't help but want to touch the gray goatee in my imagination, preferably with a big pipe on my waist, and grinned. We have been "foreigners" for many years, and now we are literally doing farm work with our backs to the sky and the loess, worrying about things like spring sowing, summer planting, and autumn harvest.