frightfiction Chapter 335 What comes and goes
Chapter 335 What comes and goes
Time passed quickly, and before they knew it, almost a month had passed since they arrived in Tangjia Village. The autumn harvest season was approaching, and the villagers of Tangjia Village would be very busy in the days ahead.
First, the sweet potatoes are harvested, and then the wheat. Anyway, after wheat comes corn and rice, so there is no time to spare.
The backwardness is that planting has accumulated a lot of experience under the research of countless ancestors. Wheat and corn can be planted in turn throughout the year. If you want to keep some land,
Many people also grow sweet potatoes, watermelons, radishes, and even garlic, onions, and white yams... There is even a greenhouse in the back.
Nowadays, a piece of land can basically only grow one crop per year, and only once a year.
This is why, in ancient times, even though there was plenty of food, people still couldn’t eat enough and didn’t live well.
But the harvest season is always joyful. After the meeting, when Shen Zhiqiu and his colleagues walked towards the fields of Tangjia Village on the east side of the river, they saw that many people had already eaten breakfast and were preparing to go to the fields.
The men were wearing coarse linen clothes, with their sleeves rolled up, pushing wheelbarrows that they had learned to make from Shen Zhiqiu and his friends, on which were placed shovels, hoes, baskets, and other things.
The women were no exception. They wore headscarves, carried baskets on their backs, and held bamboo buckets and dry food in their hands.
The children were also very excited, jumping and skipping all the way. Even the clan school in Tangjia Village would be closed during this season.
This is called the busy farming holiday. Thinking of this, Shen Zhiqiu really felt that the children of his nine clans should go to school, but they have been too busy and have not taken care of it yet.
In the sweet potato field of Uncle Tang Sanye, most of the sweet potato vines still appear green from a distance, but when you get closer, it is not difficult to see that many leaves have yellow tips.
"Uncle Tang, I think your sweet potato harvest will be good this year. The leaves are growing very lush!"
Shen Zhiqiu brought his elder brother and younger brother, Shen Douzi, over and said cheerfully.
"No, there wasn't any flood this year, so we had a good harvest."
Mr. Tang San's face was also bright red, because Shen Zhiqiu had revealed before that he would harvest sweet potatoes.
If the grain merchants did not raise the price, he would buy it at one cent per pound. You should know that his family's sweet potatoes were sold at one cent and two pounds last year because the grain merchants had to lower the price.
Now that they have arrived, Shen Zhiqiu and his companions are here to harvest sweet potatoes for Mr. Tang Sanye's family. What else is there to say? Just get to work.
In fact, to dig sweet potatoes, you must first pull out and cut all the vines, and then dig them out with a hoe or shovel.
But still be careful not to damage the sweet potatoes.
"Oh my, there are so many in this nest!" Shen Zhidong said in surprise.
He was particularly lucky, as he produced seven or eight large sweet potatoes in his first litter.
He bent down, picked up the sweet potatoes, put them into the basket, and continued to dig out the potatoes.
Shen Zhiqiu was also waving a hoe. The weather was very hot and he was sweating after just a few movements, but this could not stop his enthusiasm for sweet potatoes.
You know, this is a great treasure that will make them rich in the future!
In fact, starch can also be made from corn, but in Daqing the cost of corn is obviously higher than that of sweet potatoes.
Moreover, the yield of sweet potatoes is higher than that of corn, even in ancient times when there were no chemical fertilizers.
From time to time, the sound of people talking could be heard from the sweet potato field. The eldest of Tang Sanye's family, Tang Xin's father, was also showing off a big sweet potato:
"I think this year's sweet potato harvest is better than last year's. Last year, we harvested just under six stone per mu of land."
Shen Zhiqiu grinned and said nothing, but it was not difficult to see from his expression that the sweet potato production in ancient times was really low, less than six stone, which is about seven hundred kilograms.
Even if the harvest this year is better than in previous years, it is estimated that it will not reach 900 kilograms at most. You should know that the yield of modern sweet potatoes per acre can mostly reach more than 2,000 kilograms.
Even with careful management, it is possible to reach four or five thousand kilograms.
But the yield of 700 kilograms per mu is enough to save the people from disaster.
This dynasty, like the Ming Dynasty before it, had a very important role in the population surge of the imperial court due to the introduction of sweet potatoes.
In fact, sweet potatoes played an indispensable role in the old emperor's driving the barbarians out of the interior.
As for how it was transmitted, it is not very clear, and no relevant records have been seen yet.
Shen Zhiqiu pulled himself back to his thoughts. He couldn't let his concentration get distracted any longer. The sweet potato vines were stretching out freely, crisscrossing over the mound of earth.
After digging for a while, you have to cut the vines. The vines are too lush and grow wildly and in a disorderly manner, which affects their performance.
He pulled aside the vines and continued to dig deeper. After shoveling away the brown soil, he saw the sweet potato heads sticking out.
The big red sweet potatoes were almost exposed. He held the sweet potatoes in both hands and shook them vigorously.
It became looser and looser, and finally I picked up the sweet potato vine and pulled it up, and a big, fat sweet potato was dug out.
Looking at the big, rosy sweet potatoes, Shen Zhiqiu's mouth curled up.
Under the blue sky and white clouds, breathing the fresh air and indulging in nature, when he was young in his previous life, in order to give his wife, children, parents and a better life, he chose to go to the city to do business.
At that time, everything in the city was attractive to him, but as he grew older, he slowly discovered that, in fact, he liked the leisurely and slow life in his hometown more and more.
It’s okay now, this will be a complete return to the ancient farming life.
As time passed, rows of sweet potatoes broke through the soil.
Each one is full and brightly colored.
The women and children followed closely behind.
Skillfully picking up and putting into baskets,
The red sweet potatoes reflected their smiling faces of harvest.
Because they all knew that this year was different from previous years. There was no need to worry about the sweet potatoes being underpriced and not being able to be sold. Every household was afraid of wasting food and letting it rot in the cellar.
Every day I either roast or steam sweet potatoes, or make stir-fry sweet potato slices, sweet potato porridge, or sweet potato cakes.
It's really true that there is nothing you can't eat, and every household eats sweet potatoes every day for a long time after harvesting them, and they fart a lot more than before.
Originally, the little kids all love to eat sweet and fragrant sweet potatoes, but no matter how much they like them, they can’t resist eating them like this and have to eat them every day.
Sometimes even little kids will look sad when they see sweet potatoes.
But the adults were unhappy, especially the elderly who had really gone hungry. They would scold: "There are such delicious sweet potatoes, why are you picking them? If you encounter a disaster,
Forget about the sweet potatoes, just the sweet potato vines you have to stuff into your mouth. If someone wants to snatch a piece from you, you will probably have to fight them to death.”
As for Shen Youyou, she was not idle at home either. After the meeting, her father took most people to help the people in Tangjia Village dig sweet potatoes.
She tinkered with glycerin at home. There was no other way. She could find semi-finished products of alkali and white vinegar, but she really had to make glycerin from scratch.
After setting up her stall the day before yesterday, she went to the shop to ask, and was told that soda ash was ten cents per pound. Although it was very expensive and would increase the cost invisibly, it was faster than burning it themselves.
As for vinegar, you can still buy it at the old price of seven or eight cents. Although these two things will temporarily increase the cost, fortunately the amount used is small and it is still affordable.