Lee Young Ja devastated as monsoon ruins her vegetable garden

Entertainer Lee Young Ja was left devastated as she looked upon the vegetable garden of her second home, which had been ravaged by monsoon rains. While the corn and tomato pots she had worked so hard to cultivate were knocked over by the wind and rain, the video revealed her personally setting them upright and harvesting the vegetables a few days later to complete her own meal.

On the 6th, a video titled 'Lee Young Ja's Fresh(?) September Meal Made by Rummaging Through the Front Yard Instead of the Mart' was uploaded to Lee's YouTube channel.

In the video, Lee inspected the front yard garden of her second home, which had collapsed after failing to withstand the autumn monsoon. The first thing that caught her eye was the corn, which had fallen over weakly. Lee expressed her distress, saying, "Wow, these are all broken. The corn is all broken. This is a big problem."

After looking around the garden, she sighed, saying, "It has become a wasteland." In particular, seeing the tomato pots lined up and knocked over, she could not hide her heartbreak, stating, "This was my ambitious project for 26 years."

However, Lee did not simply sit down in despair. She personally tidied up the garden, setting the fallen pots upright one by one and checking the condition of the soil and plants. The video naturally revealed that growing crops is not just about planting seeds, but a process of struggling with numerous variables such as weather, pests, and managing supports.

While vegetables can be easily obtained from neatly arranged shelves in city marts, every single crop holds a completely different meaning for someone who has cultivated a garden themselves. The scene where crops collapse in an instant due to several days of heavy rain and strong winds shows the ruthlessness of farming, yet Lee's unique life force was evident in the process of setting them upright again and gathering the remaining harvest.

The situation changed slightly a few days later. Lee personally harvested chili peppers, pumpkins, cucumbers, and more from the garden. Although some crops were damaged by the monsoon, the ingredients available from the garden were still plenty.

Lee added octopus and ham to these ingredients to make fried rice. It was a process where vegetables grown in the front yard moved to the kitchen and were finally completed as a meal. The staff members, after tasting the finished fried rice, marveled at the harmony of the octopus texture and the vegetables.

In this scene, Lee's second home reveals a character different from a mere villa for relaxation. It is closer to a 'living-type space' where she directly grows crops and prepares food using the harvested ingredients. This aligns with the food philosophy she has shared several times through her broadcasts. It is an attitude that values not just obtaining good ingredients, but where those ingredients come from and how they arrive at the table.

Lee has long connected the joy of eating with her broadcasting persona. Following her displays of extensive food knowledge and extraordinary gourmet tastes on variety shows such as 'The Manager,' she is now expanding her territory from a 'eater' to a 'grower' by revealing her life of tending and harvesting a garden.

In particular, the medium of YouTube is suitable for showing the process of life itself rather than the edited results seen on television. From the lamentation at the moment the crops fall to the labor of setting the pots upright again, and the process of harvesting and making food a few days later, it all connects as a single narrative. The process of unexpected failure and recovery provides more realistic fun to viewers than the perfectly managed daily lives of stars.

Just because the garden was destroyed by the monsoon does not mean Lee's 'ambitious project' was a complete failure. Rescuing the remaining crops and turning the harvested vegetables into food is itself another kind of conclusion to farming.

Ultimately, what Lee showed that day was the process of making that meal rather than the richly set table itself. Although she could not hide her disappointment in front of the corn broken by the wind and rain and the fallen tomato pots, she eventually moved her hands again to tidy the garden and placed the harvest on the table. Just as the phrase 'the front yard instead of the mart' suggests, she turned the time spent in the garden, including the failures, into a single meal.