Upon hearing this, Qin Shi disregarded the fact that she had just finished eating and was sweating profusely, and that the sun was almost directly overhead, making the world feel like a steamer, and headed straight for the vegetable garden in the yard.
When she arrived, she noticed a patch of green in the yard. She assumed it was vegetables that her third aunt's family had planted in the yard. Little did she know that it was the sweet potato seedlings they wanted!
The sweet potato seedlings were standing upright, not even half a foot tall. Some were green, and some were even green with a hint of purple. Moreover, the shape of the leaves was very peculiar; they were heart-shaped.
"These are... sweet potato seedlings?"
As she asked the questions, Madam Qin bent down to examine the object closely.
"Yes, the soil is used to bury sweet potatoes. One is this big. We've tried them before. They're soft and sweet, and one or two are enough to fill your stomach."
Sweet potatoes can be boiled, steamed, cooked into porridge with rice, or sliced into dried sweet potatoes. They can be boiled directly or ground into flour and mixed with wheat flour to make noodles.
Even the sweet potato leaves are edible. They can be used in soups, cold salads, steamed noodles, made into cornbread, or even added to an egg to make a pancake. All of those methods work.
Logically speaking, a peasant woman's appetite shouldn't be small, but nowadays even wild vegetables have to be eaten sparingly, and every day it's either soup or water, so her stomach has long been shrunk by hunger.
Moreover, if the sweet potatoes grow well, they can weigh one or two pounds, or even three or four pounds each.
When Yue Jiuyue measured the size of the sweet potatoes, Qin Shi and the others' eyes suddenly lit up, and Yue Jiuyue found it amusing.
As expected, those peasants are so endearing; they forget everything else as soon as they hear about grain.
"This sweet potato is a treasure from head to toe!"
The old lady squatted on the ground, carefully stroking the tender leaves of the sweet potato, her cloudy eyes sparkling with tiny hearts.
"Yes, that's why we wanted to get everyone to plant sweet potatoes. But it's our first year planting them, so we have to figure everything out as we go. Plus, the weather was dry this year, and we planted them late. So by autumn, the sweet potatoes we harvest might not be as big as I'm talking about."
Yue Jiuyue was giving them a heads-up in advance, so that if the sweet potatoes didn't grow well and weren't even the size of a fist, this family wouldn't come looking for trouble with her again.
She believed that the old lady and Qin were absolutely capable of doing such a thing.
"Yeah, yeah, it's the first year we planted them, nobody knows how, so it's normal if they don't grow well. But didn't you say that sweet potato leaves are edible? Then this is perfect!"
The old lady didn't think too much about it, or maybe she didn't have time to think about it. Anyway, her eyes were glued to the sweet potatoes. She wished she could dig up the sweet potato seed buried in the soil right now, or pick some leaves, and taste them to see if they were as Yue Jiuyue had said.
"Yes, these days, it's good enough to have something to fill your stomach."
Qin Shi also said something, but Yue Jiuyue thought it was just a polite remark.
Shanghe Village has no shortage of water, at least the villagers have no shortage of water to drink, unlike their village where the village chief has to take the lead in going to the mountains to find springs, although this was eventually stopped by Yue Jiuyue buying water to irrigate the ancient well.
Shanghe Village has no shortage of drinking water, and the river has turned into a stream due to the drought, which means that the crops in the village cannot be irrigated enough. However, it is still much better than other villages. The harvest is more abundant, and whether it is sold for money or exchanged for old grain, Shanghe Village is considered wealthy.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
