She cut the old tree stump from the mountain, rinsed it and dried it in the sun. It was also treated with pest control and moisture-proof treatment. It is suitable to be placed next to the bed as a bedside table.
Similarly, there are dead tree branches used as clothes drying racks. The skin is peeled off and built into a sturdy tripod. A bamboo pole is placed on top to make a good clothes drying rack.
There were overgrown weeds in front of the thatched house. In order to facilitate drying, it took a day to clear the weeds. I used the remaining bamboo to build a simple fence. It could not protect against villains, but could only protect against chickens pecking everywhere. .
A vegetable patch was opened along the fence, but she didn't have any seeds at the moment, so she transplanted some wild vegetables, wild onions, and wild mint that she had picked up from the mountains. There was a complete drying area in the middle of the yard.
Xu Yin wondered if it was because her image of a fierce woman with big arms and a round waist, legs as thick as elephants, and a face as big as a plate was so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people that no one came to her door even after the separation for more than ten days.
In fact, the people in the village were very curious about her, and the village women even took sides on why the Cui family was separated: one side supported her mother-in-law, and the other side supported her.
When the two parties gathered together to dig wild vegetables and make needlework, they often argued about this.
Every time I pass by her thatched house, I take a few more glances.
It's just that they are not familiar with each other, and they don't know much about her temperament, so naturally they won't come to chat with her when nothing happens.
This is how the misunderstanding arose.
Xu Yin was puzzled, but she was busy with many things every day, and the earthen jars filled with grains were completely empty. She carried the prepared herbs, dried mountain products, and bamboo products to the town to exchange for money or coarse grains and brought them back.
Come back and continue shopping for mountain products, drying mushrooms, picking herbs, and weaving bamboo strips... to prepare for the next wave of markets.
At night, you must also insist on taking medicinal baths and conditioning to lose weight.
Mrs. Cui couldn't sit still anymore and asked her youngest son to come over and send a message: Are you not going to plant the land allocated to the eldest family? Why haven't I seen her in the fields for half a month? The weeds are almost taller than the crops.
Xu Yin: "!!!"
She said so!
I always feel like there is something I haven’t done, and I have forgotten to farm!
…
The field assigned to Xu Yin and his wife is not far from the end of the village, with two acres of paddy field and one mu of dry land. Rice is grown in the paddy field and rapeseed is grown in the dry land.
Rice here is grown only once a year, a bit like the mid-season rice of later generations, sown in March and April and harvested in July and August. After the rice is harvested, broad beans, radishes, cabbage and other winter vegetables are usually planted so that the land will not be left empty.
Rapeseed has a short maturity period and can be harvested within three months of planting. Therefore, it is generally planted late and the land should be fertilized before planting.
In the old Cui family, only the Cui family and his wife worked, and the original mother never went to the fields once after she got married. When the family was separated, the rapeseed had just sprouted, so she was given the most barren acre of dry land, and the location was also remote. Very close to the foot of the mountain, but relatively close to the old house.
Rapeseed is planted late, so its maturity period is similar to that of rice. After it is harvested, sorghum, soybeans and other miscellaneous grains are planted.
If we don't plant these, after paying the taxes, there won't be enough grain left to carry next summer's harvest.
Regardless of the two acres of paddy fields, the grain output at this time was so low that future generations would be unbelievable - after a whole year of busy work, the yield per mu was less than 300 kilograms.
For this three hundred kilograms of grain, God has given me a favor - I only hope for good weather and good weather all year round.
But an adult, even if he only eats three hundred grams of staple food a day, will need two to three hundred kilograms of grain in a year.
This is just the staple food. You have to buy some fish, protein and other meaty foods. In addition, the family's four-season clothing, daily necessities, etc. all need to be exchanged for the output of the land, so three acres of land is really not much.
Xu Yin came to her field and thought while pulling weeds. She must find a way to increase production no matter what.
She does have a lot of high-yielding rice seeds in her hands, but her current identity is that of a country girl who cannot read a word. The farthest place she has been to is the market in the town. She has never even left the county town when she was sixteen. , how can you conjure a bunch of seeds from scratch?
Unlike bamboo weaving, there were several skilled bamboo craftsmen in Kaoshan Village below her natal village. Before she got married, she went to the mountains to collect food from day to night and rarely stayed at home. She was often bored when she was idle. Watching bamboo craftsmen weaving bamboo, you can learn it after watching it a lot, and some people seem to believe it.
But there is really no way to find a reason for the seeds. These days, grain seeds are the life of farmers.
Then the only solution is to look at fertilizers.
As the saying goes: a crop is a flower, and it all depends on fertilizer. The seedlings will be strong only if they are fat enough!
After Xu Yin finished pulling the grass, she stood up and rubbed her waist, looking at the two acres of rice fields and thinking.
During the growth process, rice has the greatest demand for nitrogen fertilizer, followed by phosphorus and potassium.
These days, the largest source of fertilizer is human and animal excrement.
But now she lives alone and doesn’t raise chickens. Where can she get enough farmyard manure?
These days, everyone is holding their breath and peeing when they go home. As the saying goes, "The fertilizer does not flow to other people's fields," this does not mean farmyard fertilizer.
As for making one's own ecological fertilizers like the later generations did... People don't have enough to eat, so how can they use soybeans, peanuts, and tofu residue to fertilize nitrogen? Don’t even think about expired milk, no one can eat it.
The most is rice water, peels, and rotten vegetable leaves. But these fertilizers alone are not enough!
It is relatively easy to make phosphate fertilizers - fermented fish scales and fish offal, or ground into powder after exposure to the sun, chicken bones, pig bones, and fish bones are all excellent phosphate fertilizers.
She has the skill of "fishing with small things". Dawa Village has a well-developed water system and many rivers and lakes. When she has time, she can catch some fish and come back. The fish bones are ground into powder and the internal organs are fermented to make ready-made phosphate fertilizer.
Potassium fertilizer is also good, the most common one is plant ash, mosquito coil ash that repels mosquitoes in summer can also be used.
After thinking about it this way, it seems that there is only enough fertile nitrogen fertilizer left.
She planned to get up early tomorrow and go to the mountains to look for castor or hemp.
These two kinds of seeds not only have high protein content, but also contain oil. Whether they are raw seeds or oil residue cake after oil extraction, they are excellent raw materials for nitrogen fertilizers.
After inspecting the rice fields, she went to the dry land again and pulled grass again. The grass she pulled was put in a basket and carried back to dry in the sun, and then fermented and fertilized.
Cui Dazhuang, a villager working in the field next door, saw it and felt puzzled. He said to his mother-in-law: "Is this Meng Jin's wife? Why is she carrying the grass back? Isn't it good to leave it in the field to fertilize it?"
His mother-in-law looked up at Xu Yin's land. Apart from the crops, there was only bare mud, and the weeds had been pulled out and taken away.
The strong daughter-in-law curled her lips: "I don't know! Does she want to take it back and dry it and use it as firewood? But what good is the withered grass?"
Cui Dazhuang scratched his head: "She moved very quickly. She pulled out all the weeds in an acre of land so quickly."
"What do you mean? Do you think I'm slow?"
"No way, I just said it casually."
"You just say that you praise others casually? Isn't this because you dislike me?"
"..."
Cui Dazhuang couldn't argue.
The saint is right! Only women and villains are difficult to raise!
(End of chapter)
