◎Happy 56th day: Growing vegetables and physically exterminating pests◎
This group of people in the afternoon were all homeless kids, who just happened to get together to wash and hang out the laundry.
The foam floor mats that were taken apart, the clothes, shoes and socks that were fished out from the water, and some bedding and quilts that were packed in water.
Soak it in disinfectant first, then rinse it back and forth with the laundry detergent and laundry liquid that you scooped up when scooping out the soap.
The large stainless steel barrels brought back earlier came in handy. More than ten stainless steel barrels were placed in a row on the temporary dock. After each barrel was washed, it was transported up the mountain with a pulley to dry.
With about ten people working together on the assembly line, these things can be washed very quickly.
After they finished washing what needed to be washed and replenished the water, there was nothing else to do, so they could only stay in the big cave and play mahjong.
Jiang Muyun doesn't know how to play mahjong, she only knows how to play poker, but now the poker cards have been soaked into a puddle in the water, and she has no choice at all.
After Jiang Muyun lost the third cookie because of a failed hand, she decisively left the mahjong table and instead stood aside to act as a military strategist and give bad advice to others.
Chu Buwen, who also couldn't play mahjong, invited her to watch the variety show: "The hard drives I brought are mostly broken, and only these two small USB flash drives are still alive wrapped in clothes. There's not much else to choose from, so let's just watch this."
Jiang Muyun leaned over to take a look at the opening credits - "Into the Wild Season 3".
Jiang Muyun asked slowly, "Is your program legal?"
Judging from the title, it doesn't look like this movie will have a third season.
Facts have proved that Jiang Muyun was narrow-minded. "Wild Battle Royale" is a serious program whose theme is wilderness survival competition.
It's called a battle royale because contestants who can't hold on can withdraw midway. The production team calls these withdrawn contestants "survival failures," effectively death. The contestant who survives the longest is declared the winner.
Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen watched the show with great interest. Although the difficulty of this show was far from surviving naked, and it was even incomparable to the end of the world, the variety show was still very effective.
Even an ordinary snow nest can be used to capture the effect of life and death.
The two of them spent an afternoon watching the entire third season. Qin Shiwu jokingly said that they were watching a survival science and education film, and said that he would make a copy to study it himself.
Jiang Muyun concluded, "Forget it. If this were a survival science film, it would be like using Tom and Jerry to teach Baymax how to hunt."
Dabai and Xiaobai, who were huddled nearby and watching together, looked up at the same time and protested with their heads held high.
Seeing that the time was almost up and the mahjong game was over, several people went together to lift the seal on the cave.
They were afraid of poisoning themselves, so after unsealing the cave, they had to allow an hour for ventilation before they could pack their belongings back in.
After everything was cleared out, Jiang Muyun took this opportunity to clean up the house.
Some uneven areas on the ground can be filled to make it slightly smoother, and any stones that need to be cleared can also be cleared out at this opportunity.
Jiang Muyun also specially pried out a large stone from the wall and used the hole left there as a place to place potted plants in the future.
Jiang Muyun usually didn't feel anything when living in the cave, but today, after releasing the poison and cleaning up, he actually found some dead insects in the ashes.
If she hadn't gotten rid of the insect infestation, she would have been carried away by the insects in the middle of the night.
Jiang Muyun grabbed some folding tables and chairs, as well as a lot of miscellaneous items, so it was no problem to simply decorate the cave.
After the cave was ventilated, it was already dark outside and difficult to see without turning on the lights. Jiang Muyun was afraid that he would attract a new group of insects just after killing them, so he simply sealed the door and took a nap. He started moving things into the cave one by one early the next morning.
First, there was the cooking table. She couldn't squat on the ground to cook every day.
Jiang Muyun picked and chose, and left out the largest piece of wood, which she intended to use as a door.
Jiang Muyun took a fancy to a long wooden board. She got a few sections of steel pipes, nailed them down at a place near the cave entrance, laid the long wooden board on top, and hammered the steel pipes into the wood with a hammer. It became a sturdy large table.
As long as you don't pile heavy objects on it, it's fine to use it as a stove.
Using the same method, Jiang Muyun made several other wooden boards of different sizes into tables or cabinets, including dining tables, desks, and storage cabinets.
Jiang Muyun kept one of the folding tables as a bedside table, and the others could be used as storage racks.
Jiang Muyun set up a full-cover mosquito net. When she slept at night, she still hoped to have an extra layer of protection.
The foam floor mat has dried and is ready to be laid.
Jiang Muyun had a bed, but it was more comfortable to sleep on the floor at this temperature.
She used a foam mat as a mattress, and put the necessary waterproof mats, eggshell mats and thermal insulation blankets underneath. She put two layers of foam mats on top, and then added bedding. It was just the right hardness and softness and kept her cool.
The cooking area must be separated from the daily living area. Jiang Muyun herself also needs a separate living area, not for entertaining guests, so that she can use some things that cannot be seen by others.
Jiang Muyun stared at the top of the cave for a long time, confirming that he could not reach that high and it was impossible to hang a curtain directly from the top.
In this case, we can only find a solution from the ground.
Jiang Muyun spent a whole day clamping all the steel pipes she had in the middle, hammering them into small thin tubes, and smuggling a lot of them out from the space. Finally, she had enough to make a simple screen.
There were a lot of hardware in her space, including a few small wheels left over from the conversion of the camper van. Jiang Muyun picked out a few of similar size and installed them under a simple screen to facilitate its movement.
This way you can fold the screen and put it aside at ordinary times, and then open it when you need it.
Jiang Muyun took a look around and felt that the decoration of the house was completed and he could start filling it in.
She put all the gas tanks she had retrieved under the table, and still kept the food wrapped in film and placed it on the side of the big stove facing the inside of the cave.
Part of the weapon was placed on the bedside table, part was buried shallowly at the entrance of the cave, and part was buried inside and outside.
Daily necessities were stored in the cabinets she knocked out, and a layer of cloth curtain was nailed on the outside as a cabinet door.
As for the sundries like cigarettes and alcohol that were not needed temporarily, Jiang Muyun placed them all in a recessed area inside the cave, and then covered it with a curtain, treating it as a storage room.
By the time we finished arranging all these, it was already dark.
The door has not been installed yet, and there is only a layer of gauze curtain. Jiang Muyun sprayed the cave with alcohol mixed with insect repellent powder, then pulled open the simple screen to separate the inside and outside spaces, and then turned on his mobile phone to try to prevent the light in the cave from leaking out and attracting mosquitoes outside.
Jiang Muyun has been catching up on his knowledge of planting these days.
The seedlings she had brought back earlier had already been planted by Zhou Ying.
However, Zhou Ying said that the roots of the seedlings did need to be planted in the ground to grow first, but the temperature outside was too high, and even a simple greenhouse could not block it, so it would be best to move the seedlings into pots in the next few days.
From now on, these seedlings will be kept in the cave, moved out in the morning and evening to bask in the sun, and occasionally illuminated with a light to see if they can be grown alive.
The temperature outside is too high. People can hardly survive standing in the sun, let alone those little seedlings.
Jiang Muyun watched the tutorial for a few days and felt that none of the seedlings outside would survive.
What about temperature, water and sunlight control? Are they able to consider this now?
He didn't learn much about planting, but he did read a lot of general common sense such as "how to make the plant root system more developed".
At least she now knows that many flower pots have hollow bottoms, not only to allow water to leak out, but also to allow the plant roots to breathe.
Textbooks are the best sleeping pills. Jiang Muyun fell asleep while reading. She was woken up by the heat the next day.
Jiang Muyun glanced at the time. It was only nine o'clock, but the sun was already shining brightly outside, and the suffocating heat kept pouring into the cave from the entrance.
Although it was hot at nine o'clock in the morning a few days ago, it was still cool in the cave, at least Jiang Muyun would not be woken up by the heat. Today the temperature rose suddenly, and Jiang Muyun felt very dry even after turning on the small electric fan.
Jiang Muyun melted the ice in the space into water and washed himself briefly, cooling himself down at the same time. Then he opened the simple screen and looked outside, and was almost blinded by the sunlight.
The two chickens had already retreated into their nests. Xiaobai, who had always loved flying freely outside, was now staying listlessly in the cave.
Jiang Muyun put a piece of ice next to Xiaobai to cool him down, and then pulled the screen open again to block the inside, thinking that the door must be opened as soon as possible.
When Qin Shiwu and others went out to look for gauze, they also brought back a lot of Velcro. Now the gauze curtain at the entrance of the cave is installed on the inner side of the cave entrance, and then sealed with Velcro.
Jiang Muyun wanted to make a thicker door that could protect him from wind and rain and keep him warm and insulated, but the Velcro was not sticky enough.
In front of her cave was a large stone platform. The ground was relatively flat, even smoother than inside the cave. Jiang Muyun looked back and forth at the cave entrance several times and decided to nail the door to the outside of the cave entrance, opening outward. Then, she would use leftover wood scraps to nail a threshold inside to block the drafty area below.
The solar panel is placed next to the door, and the line runs under the door and squeezes out from a small gap in the quilt, which does not delay the charging of the portable power supply at all.
Jiang Muyun first trimmed the shape of the large wooden board, then nailed the quilts they had collected to the large wooden board and wrapped them all with waterproof membrane cloth, so that the quilts could firmly block the irregularly shaped entrance of the cave.
Anyway, the solar panel alone is enough to provide them with electricity to turn on the lights in the cave, so the lack of light is not a problem at all.
When they were fishing, they found a lot of hardware accessories such as hinges. Jiang Muyun did not save money on them. One door used eight hinges, making it as sturdy as possible.
The inside of the door is fastened with a windproof rope, which serves as a simple door lock.
The wooden board was slightly larger than the cave door, and Jiang Muyun had buried several movable buckles outside the cave. When necessary, he could pull the traction rope inside the cave to make those buckles stand up and, together with the threshold, firmly lock the door.
In case of strong winds, these buckles will ensure that the door will not be damaged by the wind.
After finishing the door, Jiang Muyun tied the toy trumpet that Wang Qingqing had fished out to the side of the door as a doorbell, which looked rather ugly.
The door on Chu Buwen's side was similar to hers, but Chu Buwen didn't have a sunshade outside, so he simply made the door open up and down, and when the door was propped up, it could be used as a sunshade.
Some of the others made doors according to their own needs, while others simply copied others' work. As the weather got hotter, everyone unanimously prioritized making doors.
After the door was built, Jiang Muyun became even more unscrupulous at home.
If you want to put ice cubes, put ice cubes; if you want to eat watermelon, eat watermelon; you can even move out the sofa and curl up.
Wu Xingyue was a clever girl. When she went to search the comprehensive plaza, she picked up a bunch of slippers and pajamas. Jiang Muyun exchanged a few sets from her with fruit candies, and gained the joy of wearing slippers and going out openly every day.
The house has been basically tidied up. Now, apart from going down the mountain to fetch water every day, all they have to do is wait for the transplanting of the seedlings.
No one present had a say in this matter and could only wait for Zhou Ying to speak.
Zhou Ying was also a half-baked person. She didn't even recognize what crops those seedlings were. Now she was relying on her sporadic memories from childhood to get by. She was only slightly better than the other nine people who had never farmed before.
The other nine knew they didn't understand and didn't say much. They just comforted Zhou Ying and told her not to panic. At least there were potatoes inside. They said potatoes could be grown on Mars. If all of them died, it would only prove that they were not destined to have these vegetables.
After everyone said this, Zhou Ying felt even more guilty.
Zhou Ying, who felt that she had a heavy responsibility, wanted to look at them thirty times a day, for fear that these precious seedlings would die in front of her if she was not careful.
But even so, a lot of Miaomiao still left.
All those that left were the delicate flowers that Jiang Muyun took out from the space that had never experienced the wind and rain.
The potatoes and sweet potatoes that were actually brought out of the cellar are all growing healthily.
I don’t know if it’s because of the crop variety, or if the fact that they can germinate in that environment means they are tenacious individuals that have been selected.
After Zhou Ying observed for a few days and confirmed that the surviving seedlings had grown roots, he announced that transplanting could begin.
The few of them searched for an evening and gathered next to Zhou Ying's mini greenhouse after the sun set.
Now they have collected a lot of containers of various kinds, but they haven't drilled holes in them yet. They are just waiting for the plants to choose their homes before they can start decorating.
The soil was prepared in advance. Several large sacks were dug and all disinfected. The soil was also fermented using traditional methods to ensure that it was soft and nutritious.
The roots of potatoes and sweet potatoes are what we eat, so the containers for planting them need to be large and deep enough, and several large rice cooker inner pots stand out.
Zhou Ying used steel nails to chisel out holes and then filled them with loose soil. He carefully dug out the pieces of future staple food. His technique was gentler than digging out cultural relics, for fear of damaging the roots of the crops.
Of the remaining seedlings that survived, Zhou Ying confirmed that only four types were edible. The others were either weeds that had mixed in at some point, or they were too small for her to recognize.
She didn't dare pull out the ones she couldn't recognize, so she just gathered them together and raised them casually.
One that can be recognized is leek, one is spinach, and the others are shepherd's purse and bamboo grass.
These vegetables are famous for their tenacious vitality, especially leeks and bamboo grass, the number of which survived is almost catching up with potatoes.
Zhou Ying was quite puzzled when he recognized the bamboo grass.
This thing is used to feed pigs in her hometown, and it grows all over the mountains and plains.
Although she knew that some people used this as a vegetable, she deliberately kept this as well when preserving seeds. Her hobby is quite unique.
Jiang Muyun was also quite puzzled.
The seedlings and seeds in her space were all bought at the market. She had no idea what was in them, but since they grew everywhere in the mountains, why would anyone sell them?
"Maybe the grass seeds were mixed in accidentally?" said Jiang Muyun, who bought the soil together with the seedlings.
When she took the seedlings out of the space, she only rinsed them in water without cleaning the soil on the seedlings. It was not surprising that there were some grass seeds mixed in the soil.
Zhou Ying thought about it and said, "That's possible. There are a lot of weeds growing in the field where I planted the seedlings. The bamboo grass must be the seeds brought in by the soil. In my hometown, bamboo grass is almost like a weed. It is indeed very viable, but it is not very tasty."
Qin Shiwu looked at the bamboo grass seedlings and recalled for a long time: "If I remember correctly, this can also be used as a traditional Chinese medicine. It can clear away heat, detoxify, and stop bleeding. If it doesn't taste good, then use it as medicine."
Medicines will become less and less available in the future, and we can’t just sit back and eat all the food. Planting some bamboo grass can serve as a supplement to the medicine.
Qin Shiwen fiddled with the bamboo grass in the pot twice: "Now I think any vegetable will taste good."
No one has eaten fresh vegetables for more than a year. Not to mention vegetables, they even want to take a bite of wild grass.
Unfortunately, the outside is bare and there are no weeds to be seen.
Zhou Ying moved the last leek seedling, which looked like a weed, into the pot. "Don't worry, leeks grow fast, and you can harvest a single seedling many times. It won't be long before we can eat it."
Only two spinach and shepherd's purse survived, and they had already agreed to give them all to Zhou Ying to collect seeds, so as to develop the crops as sustainably as possible.
Chives and bamboo grass are different. These two crops look more like weeds than the other, but their vitality is comparable to that of weeds, and they are completely painless to eat.
Thanks to the fact that nature has already helped them to screen them, the surviving seedlings are all very easy to raise.
Zhou Ying racked his brains and told them all the planting precautions he could think of, leaving the rest to fate as to whether the crops could survive.
Zhou Ying clapped his hands and said, "Okay, we've moved everything. Everyone can take some home and plant them."
In fact, it is not impossible to take care of the vegetables together in the big cave, but the weather is getting hotter and hotter now. I feel dizzy after being out in the sun for a few minutes. It is really unnecessary to run to the big cave every day to move the vegetables and water them.
Don't look back until the food is fine and the person is already dead.
Zhou Ying tried to comfort her companions who had never grown vegetables before: "These vegetables are very resilient. A handful of seeds can grow a large field in the wild. They have survived so many hardships and still sprouted safely. The most we can do is grow them in a less attractive way, but we won't kill them."
Jiang Muyun, who knew why they sprouted, didn't dare to speak.
But she felt that Zhou Ying's words also comforted her.
It would be fine if other crops didn't survive, but potatoes and sweet potatoes have weathered many storms and grown strong enough to survive, so there's no reason why they shouldn't survive.
Sustainable development finally has hope, and Jiang Muyun decided to do everything possible to provide them with the best environment.
Continue taking online classes when you get back!
After the vegetables were transplanted, they didn't drill holes in the extra containers. Everyone shared one, and all of them were used to hold water.
The speed at which the water level dropped was visible to the naked eye, and the stones used to install the pulleys at the foot of the mountain had to be moved down several times.
The temperature outside was so high and the sun was so strong that Blue Star almost wrote the word "drought" on its face.
At this time, the first thing they did every time they used up some water was to go down the mountain to fetch more water, for fear that the water would be gone when they woke up one day.
As the water level dropped, the dirt that had been sinking to the bottom of the water gradually began to surface.
First, the originally static water began to flow noticeably, and the water that only needed simple filtration also began to become turbid.
Every day when we fetch water, we spend most of our time filtering it.
Later, the water level became lower and lower, and occasionally some debris would float over with the current. Jiang Muyun and others had to paddle the life raft around the foot of the mountain every morning and evening before the sun came out to push away all the floating objects.
By the time Jiang Muyun and others used bacteria and pest control to disinfect the cave for the second time, the water had receded to the foot of the mountain.
The water at this point couldn't be called muddy anymore; it should be called dirty. Jiang Muyun could smell a foul odor without even getting close to the water.
They have stopped fetching water, and the pulleys have been hidden away. Now everyone uses the previously stored water every day.
Just by looking at the foul smell on the water surface, you can tell how bad the situation outside is.
But even so, the debris that needs to be cleared away every day must be cleared away.
If for no other reason than for the clothes that were soaked and became tattered and sticky.
To be precise, it is the clothes left after the body has been soaked and liquefied.
They are also the source of the plague.
Today it was Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen's turn to go down the mountain to clear the debris. The two went down the mountain in the evening. They both wore double-layer masks with goggles, and long-sleeved shirts, long pants and gloves, covering themselves tightly.
Sit on the life raft and use a long stick to clear away the debris around the foot of the mountain, paddle it farther away and then throw it away.
After cleaning once, you have to disinfect yourself and the life raft with sodium hypochlorite at the foot of the mountain, and then disinfect them again with alcohol after going up the mountain.
After Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen put the life raft back into the cave, they did not go home immediately. Instead, they pulled the rope tied inside the cave to inform everyone that they did not need to go down the mountain for disinfection tomorrow.
This was the code they had set long ago.
Once the water level at the foot of the mountain drops to a level where the life raft is inconvenient to move, they will live in the mountain for a while, and then decide what to do next after the water has receded.
Today, when Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen were clearing the debris, they could feel the oars hitting the bottom several times. Fortunately, they were sitting apart, otherwise the life raft might have been damaged.
Jiang Muyun walked back quickly.
She also wanted to expand the chicken coop for the two chickens before it got completely dark.
It has been extremely hot these days. Xiaobai refuses to even leave the cave during the day and becomes energetic at night.
According to Chu Buwen, Dabai is in the same situation.
Seeing that these two obviously mutated animals couldn't bear it, Jiang Muyun thought that the two chickens at home also needed attention.
So Jiang Muyun paid special attention to the two chickens and found that they indeed lived a life of hiding during the day and coming out at night.
And perhaps to avoid the heat, the two chickens began to shed their feathers like Xiaobai.
Jiang Muyun sighed and felt sorry for his sunk costs. Finally, he decided to take another gamble and expand their nest into the mountains so that the two of them could escape the summer heat.
Even if it doesn't lay eggs in the end, it's fine as long as it can go into her stomach.
If you die from heat stroke, you will lose all your money.
Jiang Muyun was in a hurry to go back so she walked a little faster. She didn't know how many unknown small flying insects hit her forehead along the way. There were also many insect corpses on her windshield. Jiang Muyun had to wipe it every now and then to prevent it from blocking her vision.
"There are more and more bugs." Chu Buwen's voice was muffled by the mask.
Jiang Muyun waved his hands, trying to ward off the annoying little flies. "Luckily, we dug the soil early and processed it quickly. Otherwise, if there were insect eggs mixed in the soil, and the vegetables were all eaten by insects, I would cry for three days."
After the apocalypse, everyone referred to these insects that specialized in gnawing at the roots of food as vegetable worms. The worms themselves were not poisonous, so after people became extremely hungry, they successfully occupied a certain position in the staple food world.
Recently, the frequency of disinfection in each of their homes has increased to varying degrees. In a cave like Chu Buwen's, which has fewer stones and more soil, they have to disinfect the ground almost every day to feel at ease.
The lights in the house are also equipped with homemade mosquito nets. Every time I come back from going out, no matter what time it is, I have to close the door and turn on the lights to catch insects for a long time.
Chu Buwen laughed and said, "It's not that serious. At most, we can let them pay off their debts with their bodies. It will also enrich our diet."
Jiang Muyun uttered a "huh": "I didn't realize you were so nostalgic."
The good days had lasted for so long that she almost forgot about eating dried insects, insect powder, and insect cakes.
If possible, she would rather not think about it for the rest of her life.
As soon as Jiang Muyun finished speaking, a bug rushed over and hit her goggles and died.
Jiang Muyun waved his hand and said helplessly, "This won't work. Who knows what these bugs are carrying? We can't just stay at home and wait for this insect plague to end. We have to at least control the number of insects."
Chu Buwen was silent for a while: "Are you really going to do it?"
Jiang Muyun looked at him: "Then do you have any other ideas?"
Chu Buwen didn't.
In our previous lives, we suffered from insect plagues. Nothing that crawled in the soil or flew in the sky was a good thing. We were tortured for so many years, and this is the only method that is relatively universal.
To put it bluntly, it is physical pest control, and to put it more literary, it is called trapping and killing.
The high efficiency is visible to the naked eye, but the side effects are a bit severe.
If you want to kill something, you need bait, and mosquitoes and the like love bait... You can refer to the foul-smelling water surface at the foot of the mountain, and the piles of mosquitoes next to various sticky and unidentified objects.
If you don't want to attract more mosquitoes, you have to control the size and location of the bait.
Place a small pile of bait where you want to clean up, then attach a mosquito net. The next day, physically kill the insects in the net. Some extremely hungry people simply disinfect the bait, heat it, and grind it into a powder to make a food stash. Whether or not anything will happen after eating it depends entirely on luck.
This method of catching insects is similar to the principle of using lights to clean insects in the house.
It’s just that there are too many insects outside. If you use a lamp, it’s easy for the insects to block the light source directly. It’s better to put biological bait.
This method may not be as thorough as chemical cleaning, but it is low-cost and the bait can be used as long as it is not completely rotten.
The side effect is the strong taste.
It's okay to put it at the door, but if you put it at home, it will die together with the mosquitoes.
And disinfection must be done well, otherwise if new germs are bred, it will be easy to end up killing yourself instead of just killing mosquitoes.
However, after the apocalypse, the pathogens carried by these mosquitoes are much more terrifying than the new pathogens hatched in the bait pile. In comparison, catching mosquitoes is still less risky.
Chu Buwen felt his head buzzing when he thought of that smell: "It's true that what is coming cannot be avoided. Fortunately, we fixed the door early, otherwise we would not be able to live like this."
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