Chapter 26 Strawberry Seedlings

Following the shouts of the villagers, Father Ye ran out of the house.

"Hey, Ye Minghai, your seedlings are great. There are so many fruits. Do you have any seeds left?"

Everyone went in through the fence that Ye's father had opened, and gathered in front of the strawberry piles, marveling at the sight.

Father Ye was also surprised. He had never seen such high-yield strawberries, let alone strawberries that looked like this.

On a tree stump half a person's height, I saw clusters of green radish-like plants growing around the stump to the top, spreading out from the middle and extending many creeping stems. Each cluster was full of strawberries as big as an adult's palm, with bright colors.

I could smell the aroma before I even got close, and it looked delicious.

Father Ye swallowed his saliva and said, "You should ask my daughter Ye Zi about this. I heard that the seedlings she brought back from Jincheng were specially researched by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. They are not available outside."

No one knew whether everyone heard it or not. They just stared at the strawberries, eager to try and taste them.

Father Ye didn't waste any time and picked one directly and handed it to the person beside him, "Uncle Lao Gen, would you like to try it?"

Ye Laogen is Ye Ba’s cousin from the next room, and they are descended from the same great-grandfather, so naturally they are closer.

Ye Laogen, who is in his early sixties, took the strawberries handed over by his cousin. His teeth have started to fall out and he can no longer bite some hard things. However, although he may grow old, his taste for delicious food has not.

Who doesn't know that Ye Laogen was a chef in a restaurant in the city when he was young? He could tell how much salt was put into the food just by opening his mouth! As a chef for decades, what delicious food has he not eaten?

It may be because I have eaten too much diverse food over the years and my teeth are not good anymore. In addition, as I am older, my sense of taste has begun to deteriorate. I have saved a lot of money for retirement over the years, so I simply returned to my hometown and built a house to live in when I am old.

Well, his filial children took him to get dentures installed. Unfortunately, he can’t chew delicious food anymore, and there are only a few fruits he can chew. They are soft and don’t require much effort on his teeth, but they taste very bland in his mouth!

Ye Laogen put the heavy strawberry into his mouth and took a bite. The rich sweet fragrance burst out from his mouth. He chewed it a few times and his mouth was full of juice without any fruit residue. It was sweet but not greasy. It was truly the best!

"Uncle Lao Gen, how is it?" The person who asked the question was the neighbor Ye Xiaoying. Without waiting for Uncle Lao Gen to reply, the impatient girl directly took the strawberry picked for her by Ye's father and put it in her mouth and took a bite.

Ye Xiaoying: “…” Her pupils trembled violently.

What kind of magical fruit is this!

She can finish a whole pot of such fruit by herself!

After eating a few bites and licking the juice splashing from her lips, Ye Xiaoying asked directly: "Brother Haizi, are you selling this fruit?"

"Yes, I'll buy some to take home for my daughter Yinyin."

Everyone was captivated by the strawberries, and everyone wanted to buy some to take back.

Father Ye waved his hands, looking embarrassed. "We are all elders. How can we, as neighbors, accept your money? These are all grown by the children. I will give some to you later."

In the countryside, people who grow fruits and vegetables will give them to each other. You can give me some cabbage and peppers grown in my field, and tomorrow I can give you some ripe plums and oranges from your own trees, which you can pick at will.

Firstly, everyone is a neighbor and has a close relationship. Secondly, farmers usually don’t grow much themselves. Unless they specifically sell it, most of it is given away as a gift, or at worst fed to pigs, chickens and ducks.

"That's great. The early peaches in my yard are about to ripen. I'll ask Ye Ziyangzi to come pick them then."

"There are a lot of loofahs in the field. If you want to eat some, just come to my field and pick them. There's plenty!"

"Don't worry. When we run out of vegetables at home, we will go to your fields to pick them." Dad Ye did not refuse and agreed immediately.

Everyone felt relieved after hearing this. After all, even if they didn’t know the price of strawberries, they knew they wouldn’t be too cheap. So they were still getting a bargain by giving them something grown at home!

"That's a deal, when there are seeds, please help ask."

Ye's father didn't dare to agree to this easily: "Wait until Ye comes back and ask. This is because her classmates are taking care of her and left some seeds for her to try. I don't know if there are any more seeds."

Everyone thought that it was true and could only remind them again and again to save some for seeds.

…………

Ye Zhen just came back from setting up his stall. He made a good income today, earning more than two thousand yuan. This was the amount that Ye's mother and grandmother collected yesterday after a day of picking in the mountains. The land in the back mountain might have been turned over by the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

The rain stopped in the past two days, and the growth of mushrooms has obviously slowed down. Ye Zhen doesn't want to just focus on plucking the mushrooms in the land on the back mountain, so he wants to leave some time for it to grow.

Recently, I have been practicing to control the spiritual energy and vitality and transfer it to the back mountain. As a result, I can hear various animals and birds calling these days. The wild animals are very responsive. This piece of land is more spiritual than other places, and many small animals have moved their homes here.

Yesterday, Ye Ma said that she could always see pheasants and turtledoves when she was looking for mushrooms. In the baskets she brought back, in addition to various wild mushrooms, there were even a few pheasant eggs.

Ye Zhen had eaten this thing when he was a child. Grandpa Ye could often pick it up when he went to the mountains to carry wood.

There have been fewer wild rabbits in recent years. Grandma Ye said that when she was a child, the adults in her family could set traps to catch them.

The money from selling mushrooms was transferred to Ye's mother. Ye Zhen didn't go up the mountain to pick them, but he was embarrassed to take them.

The mushroom sales were so popular today that without Brother Ye, we were almost too busy to handle it.

Many returning customers buy in batches of five or ten kilograms. Even though there is one less person setting up the stall, Ye Zhen can still come back early, but it is still really tiring.

Collapsing in the chair, Ye Zhen sighed, she really wasn't good enough in cultivation, but she couldn't treat money as dirt anyway.

Before Ye Zhen could catch his breath, Ye's father came back from the backyard and went straight to the kitchen, rummaging around, causing Ye's mother and grandmother, who were cooking, to feel that he was in the way.

"What are you looking for?" The kitchen itself was not particularly big, and Dad Ye was rummaging around, causing Mom Ye to put the salt in twice before frying tea. She was so angry that she put down the spatula.

Now, I originally wanted to make stir-fried chicken, but now I can only add an extra ladle of water and stew it.

"I'm looking for a few plastic bags. Where did the plastic bags at home go? Weren't there a lot of them hanging there the last few times? Why can't I find them?" Dad Ye asked Mom Ye while holding a plastic bag he found.

Ye's mother frowned, took out the bag from the cabinet, and handed it to Ye's father.

"What do you want this for?"

Father Ye took it and said, "The strawberries that Ye brought back from the yard are ripe. Give some to Uncle Lao Gen and the others."

"They ripen very quickly. They were still green a few days ago. Don't pick them all. Leave some at home." Ye's mother reminded.

Father Ye: "Don't worry, there are several trees full of them, we can even eat them as food!"

Ye's mother didn't take it seriously. How long can such a delicate fruit like strawberry grow? Although she had never seen a strawberry seedling grow into a tree stump when she first started planting it, her daughter said that it was specially researched and was rare.

…………

Dad Ye picked strawberries carefully and put about ten each for the families he was close to. Because strawberries are big, ten of them look like a big bag.

Ye Zhen who came along took a look at the vegetable garden. The crops grown in the village were limited in variety, with only a few coming and going.

However, this year, in addition to Ye Zhen's seeds which are still being cultivated, the rest, in addition to the peppers, cucumbers, beans, etc. that are commonly eaten at home, are also planted with the economic seeds that Ye's father bought from Jincheng last time. They have now sprouted and grown leaves, and some have begun to climb up the ground.

It looks like we'll have to put up a trellis soon. I don't know what Dad Ye is planting. Not much, and they grow scattered.

The seeds she cultivated can be planted tomorrow. The slope has been almost prepared and the farmyard manure has already been spread.

Ye Zhen plans to plant some rice, watermelon, strawberry and other fruits and vegetables for her family to eat. She also plans to plant some flowers and plants, succulents...

Dad Ye has already put fish, shrimp and crab seedlings in the pond. It's such a big pond, in addition to planting lotus roots, she also wants to put some water chestnuts.

There are still not enough pigs on the mountain, so put a few more, and also sheep, and raise chickens and ducks. There will be more animals eating the grass, so sow some grass seeds.

Dad Ye will have to work hard on these things when the time comes.

Dad Ye, who was picking strawberries, sneezed and shook his head. "Alas, it's quite windy today."