Spring is here, flowers are blooming, and wild vegetables are appearing too!
Gnaphalium affine, also known as Qingming grass, can be mixed with starch paste to make qingtuan (a type of glutinous rice dumpling), which can improve the taste for everyone.
Wild scallions grown by the water are spicier than garlic and can be used as a seasoning or stir-fried with cured meat.
Artemisia capillaris in March, Artemisia argyi in April, and Artemisia argyi can be used as firewood in May and June.
Each herb has a different harvest season. While taking care of the family's crops, Jiang Zhi spends her spare time digging for herbs.
She was busy outside, and Qiaoyun was busy at home, spinning thread and helping to dry medicinal herbs. When there was no sun, they would use a kang (heated brick bed) to dry them. Everyone was very important.
The locust flowers on the mountain have also bloomed.
When the flowers bloom, clusters of locust blossoms adorn the entire tree branch, filling the air with a delicate and elegant fragrance.
Unlike the white, beautiful, and sweet-smelling locust trees, the locust flowers here are all yellow, called yellow locust flowers, also known as Chinese locust or bean locust, and the trees are tall and thornless.
White locust flowers, also known as black locust, are an introduced species and not a product of this era.
Yellow locust flowers are slightly poisonous and should not be eaten, but they are the best medicine for cooling the blood and stopping bleeding.
For medicinal use, unopened flower buds need to be picked; these are also called Sophora japonica buds. In the hot summer, they can be combined with Prunella vulgaris and chrysanthemum to make a herbal tea.
The flowering period of locust flowers is short, so you have to harvest them quickly, but the locust trees are tall and difficult to pick.
Moreover, Jiang Zhi felt that climbing trees on these cliff edges was very dangerous, and it was safer to stand under the trees.
Fortunately, there is a bamboo forest at the foot of the mountain.
Taking advantage of the several nights of full moon, when the moonlight was as bright as day, Jiang Zhi and his two companions sneaked down the mountain to cut bamboo without needing to carry torches.
Fearing that the refugees on the road would discover their whereabouts, they hurriedly cut off the bamboo branches and carried them up the mountain, exhausting the three of them to the point that they almost turned into dogs.
Bamboo has many uses. Xiaomanye splits bamboo to weave baskets, and Jiangzhi also uses thin bamboo stalks to tie sickles to reach high places to harvest locust flowers.
When using locust flowers for medicinal purposes, only the tiny kernels, about the size of a grain of rice, are used. Even the larger, unsuitable flower buds are not wasted.
Although it contains a small amount of toxins, it is harmless to eat small amounts after blanching in water, coating it in flour, and steaming it.
Moreover, due to its blood-cooling and heat-clearing effects, eating it in spring can reduce the dryness and heat of sitting by the fire in winter, which is beneficial to health.
Yellow locust is poisonous, and due to the climate, there is no shortage of vegetables all year round, so locals are not very interested in these dangerous products. At most, children might try the nectar.
Knowing from Errui and Qiaoyun that they had never eaten it before, Jiangzhi sent the steamed locust cakes she had made to the two elderly people so that they could also try it.
As expected, Master Xiaoman was shocked again.
Seeing the wild yam that he had mistaken for a yellow yam probably stirred up painful memories for Xiaoman, and now he feels apprehensive whenever he sees medicine, as if everything is poisonous.
Moreover, the flowers of the yellow locust tree are indeed somewhat poisonous.
This Errui's mother is really troublesome; she wants to test poison on herself every day.
The stubborn old man couldn't bring himself to say anything to save face, so he could only bite the bullet and eat.
Eat! Eat! Dying from poisoning is death, starving to death is also death!
Jiang Zhi was unaware that her image had changed again in Xiaoman's mind.
From causing trouble for people to causing trouble for places, and now it's the people who are causing trouble for others again.
The food she ate was either medicine or poison, and a group of people followed her around every day, jumping between poison and non-poisonous substances.
It has to be said that during times of food shortage, these locust flower cakes were still a decent meal. They were fresh and delicious, especially when eaten with houttuynia cordata (a type of herb), which made them very fragrant!
On this day, the two families added new dishes to their dining table, from cold-dressed houttuynia cordata to blanched malan, and now locust flower cakes.
Through continuous land reclamation, another terraced field was added.
It's already April, and although the chill in the mornings and evenings hasn't subsided, the midday temperature is rising rapidly, and you can already feel the sun's heat while working.
Jiang Zhi led everyone to start cultivating sweet potato seedlings.
In the newly opened terraced fields, shallow ditches are dug, manure is poured in, and seed potatoes are densely arranged in the ditches and covered with thick soil.
After half a month, the seedlings will sprout, and you can eat the sweet potato leaves. After three months, you can eat the sweet potato roots.
The emergence of high-yield crops like sweet potatoes and corn should have largely solved the problem of famine among the people, but the people of the Great Yan Dynasty were still struggling with the problem of food and clothing.
There is only one reason: lack of fertilizer and poor varieties, resulting in low yields of sweet potatoes and corn.
The largest sweet potatoes were only about the thickness of a wrist, while most were about the thickness of a thumb, resembling thin tree roots.
Anyway, it's not like those modern sweet potatoes that yield 5,000 jin per mu and are bigger than a human head.
However, it still yields more than wheat, sorghum, and corn, which produce 200 jin per mu, making it the most important coarse grain for farmers.
To achieve high crop yields, fertility is essential.
The manure pits used by only a few people are not enough to cover the wastewater. The only fertilizer for the wheat fields is wood ash, and sweet potatoes can only be grown using manure water.
Fortunately, the new soil in the terraced fields is all topsoil with humus, so there is no problem with fertility in the first year. However, this cannot be the case in the future, and we must find a way to replenish fertilizer immediately.
Without chemical fertilizers, only agricultural manure can be used, which means it is necessary to raise poultry and livestock.
Livestock is out of the question; neither family has cattle or sheep, and the remaining grain isn't enough to feed the people, let alone raise pigs.
Although pigs are omnivorous and can survive on grass, they won't grow big without high starch content.
Then the only option is to raise chickens!
Since they hid in the mountains, the happiest people have probably been the chickens of the two families.
To help Qiaoyun recover after childbirth, the family raised five old hens. Unfortunately, one was trampled to death on the night of the wildfire, leaving only four.
Several chickens roam freely across the hills and fields, needing no feeding, and you can even find an egg every day.
Xiaoman's family raised five chickens, one of which was a rooster, to help their child and Xu Dazhu recover.
Now this rooster has taken both hens from the two families as his harem, and every day he calls his friends and concubines to go into the forest to search for insects, living a more carefree life than he did in the village.
Jiang Zhi wondered if these chickens were living too carefree. Should she hatch more chicks and raise them to expand their family when there was food?
Before her idea could be realized, the crops that had just sprouted on the hillside were destroyed.
On the hillside, more than a dozen bean seedlings, only ten centimeters tall, were broken off at the roots, leaving the ground in a mess, with leaves torn to the size of rice grains mixed in with the soil.
Jiang Zhi was furious: "Who did this?"
These crops may look like just a few seedlings, but they are the lifeblood of two families.
It's not only about feeding two families, but it's also something I planted after almost losing half my life from exhaustion, so I feel heartbroken if even one of them dies.
Grandpa Xiaoman had arrived long ago, his face full of worry as he twirled the seedlings that were beyond saving. Hearing Jiang Zhi's question, he looked up and said, "Alas! That's how it is when you grow crops in the mountains."
First, clearing the land was difficult; after planting, there was the fear of birds eating the plants; and now there are rabbits.
Then, during harvest time, wild boars wreak havoc. A year of hard work, and not a single grain of rice is harvested.
These bean sprouts were eaten by the rabbits.
Jiang Zhi was speechless.
After the wildfire, Xiaoman and Errui dug out a lot of rabbit holes, thinking that things would be quiet for a while, but they didn't expect them to be hopping around again now.
Grandpa Xiaoman sighed. The oak trees covering the mountain had fed countless rabbits, but only a tiny fraction were burned to death in the wildfire; the majority had escaped.
He didn't expect the rabbits to arrive so quickly; judging from the current situation, production will be lost by at least half.
The sorghum planted on the hillside by slash-and-burn agriculture has now sprouted. Although it is planted sparsely and looks pitiful on this grassy slope, it is actually quite robust when you get closer.
Good seedlings lead to a good harvest, but the appearance of rabbits is not a good omen.
To have a good harvest, you must get rid of the rabbits or drive them away.
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