It’s a lot all at once, and we wouldn’t trade it

Lane and I got our tomatoes in the ground a couple of weeks early this year.

Right around Mother’s Day is the “safe” date here in East Tennessee — but we took our chances. The semester is winding down at the university, the rescue animals need their daily love and care, the grass is growing faster than we can keep up with, the weeds have opinions about that too, and gardening season is here in full force. It is a lot all at once.

And we wouldn’t trade it.

But here’s what’s been on my mind this week — and it started in the garden, the way so many things do for us.

Here’s something worth knowing about tomatoes: they all need some support. But how much — and for how long — depends entirely on what kind you’re growing.

A determinate tomato grows more like a bush. Compact, focused. It sets its fruit, gives you one beautiful harvest, and it’s done. The main stem can still get heavy enough to need a cage or stake to hold it up — but once it’s supported, you’re mostly just watching it do its thing.

An indeterminate is the true climber. All season long, up the cattle panel fence, reaching higher, producing more — but only if you keep giving it something to hold onto. You can’t stake it once and walk away. It needs consistent support all the way up.

Potatoes work the same way. Some varieties come in with one big haul, and they’re finished. Others — if you keep covering them, keep tending them, keep giving them what they need — they keep producing.

Same garden. Completely different needs.

And I think about that with people too. With seasons of life.

Some chapters are meant to give everything they’ve got and be finished. That’s not failure — that’s their nature. Other seasons are the climbing kind. They need something to hold onto, and they need you to keep showing up with support as they grow — not just at the beginning.

The question worth sitting with is — do you know what kind of season you’re in?

Because when you stop fighting the nature of something and start working with it, that’s when the flourishing happens.

With love,

Jules + Lane

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This letter first went out to our readers in the Country Living Connoisseur on April 30, 2026. The full issue has the garden and farm kitchen sections too. Want the next one? Pull up a chair and join us here.