"Mom, where did you buy such a big sweet potato?"
After tasting the candy, Xu Huixue and the others became very curious about who grew such a huge sweet potato.
Chen Suwen mysteriously pulled them aside and said, "I didn't buy it. I found it on my way back. It grew on the mountain."
Xu Huixue and the others looked incredulous. If there were sweet potatoes this big on the mountain, they would have been dug up long ago, right?
"I really didn't lie to you, it really exists."
"Besides sweet potatoes and corn, there are also huge pumpkins and winter melons growing over there, much bigger than the ones we harvested before."
“The pumpkin we had before only weighed a few dozen kilograms, and the biggest one weighed fifty kilograms.”
“But the pumpkins and winter melons I saw today must weigh at least several hundred pounds, maybe even over a thousand pounds,” Chen Suwen said, as if to say, “I’m absolutely not lying.”
"Mom, are you telling the truth?"
"Of course it's true." Chen Suwen looked regretful. "If my bicycle weren't too small to carry them, I would have picked a few pumpkins and winter melons."
Although winter melon can only be eaten as a vegetable, if you really can't finish it, you can make winter melon candy.
It didn't matter that Chen Suwen didn't like candied winter melon; she believed that others would definitely like it.
"Shall we sneak off and pick them?" Zhou Min suggested in a low voice.
“How are we going to get there? Even if we pick them, how are we going to bring them back? According to Mom, a single pumpkin weighs several hundred to almost a thousand pounds. How are we going to bring them back?” Xu Huixue rejected her sister-in-law’s suggestion.
"Mom, are there really pumpkins that big?"
That was a pumpkin weighing over a thousand pounds! She had never even seen a pig that big. The only thing she had ever seen that big was a water buffalo raised in the countryside.
As for pumpkins, the biggest ones she had ever seen were the ones her family harvested last time; they weighed forty or fifty pounds, which she considered extremely large.
Chen Suwen certainly wasn't lying.
"According to Mom, there are probably several acres of land there where pumpkins and other things of that size are growing... Our family definitely can't eat them all."
"Now we can't buy or sell them, and the items are big and attract attention, so we can't even sneakily exchange them for other things."
"Why don't we tell the neighborhood office about this? If we, the people of Guangming Road, go and pick them together, we should be able to use them up a bit," Shen Wenxiu suggested.
Although it hurts to share what they've discovered with others, they can't really keep it all to themselves, so it's better to treat it as a favor.
If we report this to the neighborhood committee, maybe after we've gained so much, they'll give my mother-in-law a commendation or reward.
"If there are a lot of things, the leaders might even commend you, Mom," Shen Wenxiu said, quickly pointing out what her mother-in-law was interested in, fearing she might disagree with her suggestion.
As expected, Chen Suwen's expression immediately lit up.
"Really? Will the boss really commend me? Then I can get the same award as your dad?"
Chen Suwen acted as if she particularly liked this honor, without deviating from the original owner's character at all.
"Maybe?"
Shen Wenxiu wasn't entirely sure either.
"I just don't know which brigade's territory that is. It wouldn't be good if we went there and ended up robbing them."
Chen Suwen shook her head, "It's not far from here, it shouldn't be the area of any brigade."
She specifically chose this place.
The original owner had lived here for decades and was quite familiar with the surrounding area.
The place she chose wasn't under the jurisdiction of any particular brigade; it meant that if the street office on Guangming Road went there and "occupied" those things, that would be fine too.
“Then what are we waiting for, Mom? Let’s go talk to Aunt Yao and Uncle Gao about this.” Zhou Min stood up, looking excited.
Mom might get a commendation; she's never seen a pumpkin weighing over a thousand pounds or a winter melon weighing several hundred pounds before, so she has to go and see what's going on.
Chen Suwen was pulled up by her daughter and followed her to find Yao Huijuan and the other people from the street office.
While pumpkins weighing hundreds or even thousands of kilograms are rare, they do exist—
It will happen decades later.
As far as Chen Suwen knew, there were news reports before the apocalypse that someone had grown several hundred kilograms of pumpkins.
Putting aside whether the pumpkin tastes good or not, it is indeed that big.
The pumpkins that have evolved in the apocalypse are large, heavy, and of guaranteed taste.
It has a high starch content and a sweet taste, with a very pure pumpkin flavor.
The same goes for winter melons. Before the apocalypse, some people grew winter melons weighing three or four hundred pounds. After the apocalypse, it's not surprising that winter melons, which have evolved, can grow to over five hundred pounds.
Fearing that the people from the neighborhood office might not believe what Chen Suwen said, Zhou Min also took a sweet potato and two corn cobs with her to go find them.
"Aunt Yao, look, this is a sweet potato, and one weighs about fifty pounds."
“And this corn cob is huge.” Zhou Min placed the items in front of Yao Huijuan and the others. “My mom dug up just three sweet potatoes, which weighed over 100 jin. This corn cob is also quite large, and the kernels inside are all plump.”
The size of the corn cobs is not much different; a single corn cob is about 20 to 30 centimeters long, and the kernels are not much different from those before the apocalypse.
But it's quite impressive if a corn stalk can produce seven, eight, or even ten ears of corn.
Before the apocalypse, a corn stalk would typically produce only one ear of corn, at most two, and any more than that would likely result in insufficient nutrition.
The corn stalks that evolved after the apocalypse grew exceptionally well, capable of supporting the weight of seven or eight corn cobs, and were also able to provide adequate nutrition.
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