Chapter 247 Stocking up on vegetables for the winter

The villagers went into the mountains at the end of August, and the time from clearing the land to sowing rapeseed was around the beginning of September.

Each of their families has a large family, and there is not enough time to grow crops, so all the wasteland they reclaimed was planted with vegetables. In the past, vegetable plots in Qili Village were calculated by cents, but now they are calculated by mu!

It was just the first year of land reclamation, the land was very barren, the fermented fertilizer was insufficient, and the yield was not high.

They were fleeing famine throughout the summer and missed the time when vegetables and beans were in large supply. Except for Shen Qing's family, other families only had a few pounds of dried vegetables in stock.

Women who cook are particularly concerned about vegetables for the winter.

After buying the big jar for storing sauerkraut, Shen Qing calculated the number of people in his family and decided to make a jar of Sichuan pickles while storing Northeastern sauerkraut!

Sauerkraut is not only delicious, but also can stimulate appetite, promote digestion, and moisten the intestines and promote bowel movements. It must have its unique advantages to become a favorite ingredient in every household.

Every winter, Liu Cuihua's family would eat up several large jars of sauerkraut. Her three sisters-in-law said it was best used to stew meat.

It’s effortless to make, and it’s delicious when you eat it piping hot.

Shen Qing himself likes Sichuan pickles.

Although cowpeas, the main vegetable, are no longer available after summer, Chinese cabbage, white cabbage, green vegetables, white radish, carrots, and lettuce can all be used for pickling in this season!

Then soak two jars of fresh ginger and sprinkle a handful of chili peppers.

It tastes sour and spicy, and is incredibly delicious whether it’s eaten with porridge, on its own, or as an ingredient in a dish!

Just thinking about stir-frying chicken and duck offal with half a plate of pickled ginger and chili peppers, and then covering it with rice, the sour and spicy taste will make your mouth water.

Unfortunately, the garlic seeds will not grow until April or May next year, so we cannot make sweet and sour garlic now. However, we can soak some garlic stalks, and then soak a small jar of garlic shoots when the garlic shoots sprout in the spring next year.

Don’t think about what’s far away, you have to take care of the food nearby first!

Today the men continued to build houses, the girls went up the mountain to dig medicinal herbs, and Shen Qing took a group of women to buy vegetables for the winter!

Vegetables are not as rare as cloth and seasonings. Farmers can grow them. Jincheng is vast and sparsely populated, and the wintering period is long. Almost every household grows a lot of them. The leftovers will be taken to the city or sold at the market.

The group found a village they passed by on the way to the city. It only took half an hour to get from here to the mountains, and two hours in total including loading was enough, which is four hours. It was easy to make two trips a day.

Seeing a little child, Zhao Mingyue enthusiastically stepped forward and shouted, "Kids, where is your village chief? Can you take us there?"

The seven or eight-year-old child looked at them warily with his big eyes, somewhat hesitant.

This bit of defensiveness and hesitation turned into a brilliant smile after Shen Qing handed over a candy ball: "Auntie, come with me! I'll take you to see the village chief!"

Zhao Mingyue: .....Her family is still making malt sugar, how could she have forgotten about this!

But I really can't blame her. Who carries candy with them like Shen Qing? Especially when she asked for directions and was given a candy, it made me feel bad.

The village chief stood there in a daze as he watched a group of strong women approaching.

He cupped his hands and asked, "What can I do for you?"

"Well, we need to stock up on sauerkraut. We passed by and saw that you had a lot of this kind of vegetables. Does the village chief have any extra ones to sell?" Zhao Mingyue said cheerfully.

After learning that they wanted to buy vegetables in large quantities, the village chief was even more stunned. How could a woman come out to discuss business?

But I heard that the wealthy families sent their maids to do the shopping, but these women didn't look like servants...

He hesitated and said, "Yes, but it's not cheap."

In their village, people would raise chickens, ducks, and geese, and send their eggs to the city or to the market to sell or exchange for other things. However, vegetables could only be sent to the city. After all, most of the people who went to the market were farmers. Who couldn't grow vegetables? Why would they spend money to buy vegetables?

A cabbage weighing seven or eight pounds costing two cents seemed expensive. After all, two cents could buy two eggs. These women did not seem to be servants from wealthy families. If they were farmers, they would definitely think that cabbage was expensive.

Shen Qing, Zhao Mingyue and the others were worried. If it wasn't cheap, how expensive could it be?

Li E asked nervously, "Village Chief, how much is it if it's not cheap?"

The village chief pointed to the neatly arranged cabbages in the vegetable patch and said, "Look, one this big costs two cents!"

He thought about the long journey to the city, the two-cent entrance fee, and the fact that he couldn't always sell all his goods, so he often had to bring them back. He sighed and said, "If you buy more, you can save a few cents if you buy together."

They are not afraid of being tired when going to the city, but they are reluctant to spend the entrance fee. Since they come to buy, they can save the entrance fee. In addition, if they get two or three pieces cheaper, they can just treat them as if they cannot be sold.

Looking at the cabbages, each bigger than a head, tied up with straw ropes in the field, everyone thought: "...two cents a head? Is that expensive? This is very cheap!"

Liu Cuihua was ready to bargain, but after hearing the price of two cents per piece, she swallowed back what she was about to say.

Why did she suddenly feel it was a good deal?

In the past, even if we stored several hundred kilograms of sauerkraut at home, it was not enough to eat. It was not that we didn’t want to pickle more, but the land on the mountain was so small that it was very good to have a harvest of several hundred kilograms every year!

For these hundreds of kilograms of cabbage, she diligently tilled the soil, composted and fertilized the land, sowed and thinned the seedlings, and caught insects...

The ones in the field were much rounder than the ones she had planted. One seed weighed at least six or seven pounds, ten weighed six or seven pounds and cost twenty cents, and a hundred weighed six or seven hundred pounds and cost two hundred cents. What was the point of her working so hard for half a year to harvest only four or five hundred pounds?

Liu Cuihua thought about how she had to eat sauerkraut very sparingly every spring, and all she could think about was shopping!

This winter, not only will we have enough food to eat, but we will also be able to eat as much sauerkraut as we want!

There are 400 to 500 kilograms of food at home, so it should be enough to buy 300 to 400 kilograms for ourselves, and then give 200 kilograms each to the second and third children. The two sisters-in-law often worry that there is not enough sauerkraut to eat, and they don’t know what dishes to cook when cooking.

She shouted, "I want a hundred!" She estimated that there would be about 700 to 800 kilograms, and they would divide it up when they got back.

Zhao Mingyue panicked when she heard this. After thinking about the number of people in her family, she hurriedly shouted, "I want seventy."

There are quite a few at home, but Shen Qing said that there is more in his own field. Once the cellar is dug, he will store the fruits in the cellar and eat them fresh in winter.

These seventy seeds would weigh about five hundred pounds. They should be enough to eat for a whole winter if made into sauerkraut, right?

"Then I want sixty."

"I have a big family, so I'll need a hundred."

.....

Shen Qing wanted to make two kinds of kimchi, especially more varieties. After reporting the number of cabbages, he asked the village chief, "Do you sell white radish, carrots, Chinese cabbage, and lettuce?

Oh right! Do you have ginger?

The village chief has been mouthing non-stop since the woman in front of him started counting.

My God, they buy cabbages without blinking an eye!

Two cents for one, dozens or even hundreds of them, so a family would have to spend hundreds of cents.

Oh, there are people buying other vegetables!