EBE Chapter 434: Harvesting Wheat Seeds
Chapter 434: Harvesting Wheat Seeds
Cook until half dry, then turn up the heat to reduce the sauce. Even an earthenware pot cannot hold all of it, mainly because too much taro was added!
I fried two more bowls of the leftover Yongcai.
Wash the fresh edamame picked from the vegetable garden, throw it into a pot with salt, star anise and ginger slices, and boil the edamame in salt water.
There is also the fragrant leek and egg soup.
This is the family’s lunch.
Zhou, Su and the other two ate in the house as usual.
Zhou Guo felt that it was really difficult for them as they had not been able to go out for several days. He chopped the duck legs into pieces and left a large piece for each person.
Although they were the first to go back, they were not the first to arrive. Several families were already eating, so I don’t know how they arrived so quickly.
There was no need to shout when we got to the field, everyone came right up.
As usual, a bucket of well water was brought down, but today no one came to fetch water to drink. People who brought their own food also brought it, and although it was not that cold, it was cold anyway, so they did not come to Zhou Guo's house to ask for water to drink.
A clay pot of duck meat, a clay pot of leek and egg soup, a clay pot of boiled edamame in salt water, and two large bowls of stir-fried vegetables.
Li saw the huge pot of fresh, green edamame and her eyebrows jumped. "You, you're eating the soybeans before they're even cooked? That's too much!"
It's a whole pot, how many soybeans must be picked, and there are not many in the vegetable garden.
Zhou Guo said, "It doesn't matter if you eat it. It's not as delicious when it's old. Besides, we don't expect to do anything with that little soybean. We planted it for eating. Aunt Chen said that after they harvested the wheat, they would plant a crop of soybeans to fertilize the land. I think we can plant a crop as well. If we can harvest it, we can harvest it. If we can't harvest it, it's also good as green manure."
Everyone was confused, "What is green manure?"
The old man gnawed the duck's head carefully and looked at her. It was the first time he heard this word.
Zhou Guo said calmly, "Green manure is green fertilizer. Bean sprouts are green, but they don't produce beans. If you turn them over now and bury them deep in the ground, they will ferment over the fall and winter, and rot in the spring of next year. They will become excellent base fertilizer, which is green manure."
Zhou Mai suddenly realized, "It's the same way you weeded the rice seedlings. That's also green manure?"
Zhou Guo nodded and said, I guess so.
Everyone thinks of those two acres of paddy fields. Now it is almost in the late stage of filling. The grains are long and full, visible to the naked eye. The harvest is sure to be good!
Although I don’t know if it was the effect of the green manure at the beginning, it definitely played a role.
Li pondered and said, "It would be fine if we planted another crop of soybeans, but it would be ten acres. I'm afraid our family doesn't have that many. We have to buy this. It's too rushed. I'm afraid we can't plant ten acres. It would be great if we can plant five acres."
Zhou Guo said, "Mom, didn't I tell you that we don't have to get a harvest? We just want to fertilize the land. If we can't catch up, we can intensively cultivate five acres and coarsely cultivate the remaining five acres. If we get a harvest, we won't have to buy soybean feed for the horses and cows in winter. And if we want to plant soybeans, we don't have the seeds at home. I'm afraid we'll have to buy some from Aunt Chen. Since the soybean seeds she has can be planted at this time, they should be late-maturing varieties, which are different from the seeds we have."
Li slapped her head and said, "I actually forgot about this. You are right. I will ask her later."
Seeing that the two of them had finally finished talking, the others picked up their bowls and started to eat. As for farming, they had no say in what to plant and what not to plant, or how to plant. Their family decided how to plant and they just followed behind. After all, they didn't know how to farm like Zhou Guo.
No one was dissatisfied. Zhou Guo was able to have a say because of his own efforts, and the two acres of paddy fields were the best proof.
The old man gnawed the duck head carefully, looked at his young apprentice talking about farming, thought of the piles of fertilizer in the backyard, shook his head, and wondered what kind of path this girl would take in the future. Did she really have to farm here for the rest of her life?
Then all his kung fu skills have been taught in vain. Why do you need to learn kung fu for farming? It is enough to learn the horse stance. Even a six-foot tall man can hardly withstand one kick.
Zhou Guo picked up a piece of duck wing. It didn’t have much meat on it, so most people didn’t like it very much, but she liked it very much.
Looking at the old man gnawing on the duck head, he asked with a smile: "Master, can you tell what's different about the duck meat today?"
"Ah? What's the difference?" The old man didn't answer, but the others began to taste it carefully.
Didn't taste any difference.
The old man ate the duck eye in one bite and said, "What's the difference? It's just adding some wine... Wine? You stole my wine to cook again?!"
Zhou Guo stretched out his finger and pinched the tip, chuckling, "Just a little bit, just a little bit. I'm just making a dish, so I won't use a lot. Just one mouthful at most. I said you have a very sensitive taste. The smell of this little bit of wine would have dissipated long ago, but you can still taste it."
The old man snorted and said nothing. Look at how many years he has been drinking. How could he not taste it?
The family finished their meal chatting and laughing.
……
The Zhou family had ten acres of land, and because they had two vehicles to transport it, there was no need for manpower to carry it, so it was quick to harvest. Eight people finished harvesting in two days. But even this was still slow. There were families with more people, and everyone was a good worker, and they could finish harvesting several acres of land in one day.
The wheat has been harvested before the badgers have even started eating.
Now everyone was really relieved that the wheat did not fall on the ground.
Two days later, Zhou Guo and Zhou Suli went to the fields with baskets and pick up wheat ears. Farming is so hard, and they couldn't miss a single ear of wheat. It would be a pity to leave them on the fields.
Their land was harvested very cleanly. They only picked up three baskets of wheat ears from more than ten acres of land. They took them back, ground them, and made a lot of steamed buns.
After the wheat is harvested, the fields are filled with children from every family, carrying baskets and bags, picking up the wheat ears one by one. Even the wheat ears that were scattered on the fields and had not been collected in time would be collected. In years of famine, a single steamed bun could cause a person to fight to the point of bleeding.
Zhou Guo took a dozen handfuls of wheat ears and chopped them. These were specially selected by her from the ten acres of land. She picked the wheat plants with large and full grains, many grains, and thick and healthy stalks. They were very different from other wheat ears, but unfortunately there were not many of them. She searched ten acres of land and harvested all the slightly different ones, and that was all she found.
She tied them into bundles, hung them on poles, exposed them to the sun, and after they were dried, she stored them in clay jars. She then stuffed a handful of insect-proof wormwood into the jars and placed them on a shelf in the room. These seeds should be enough to plant two or three mu of land?
What a pity there aren't many seeds!
Seeing how much she valued these handfuls of wheat, Zhou Gu smiled and said, "It's just that the seeds are different, but there are only a few of them. How much land can be planted with such a small amount? And you're still hiding it!"