Chapter 191: Raising Rice Seedlings
The water source is not far from home, about a few hundred meters in a straight line.
Mu Xi led the horse to pull the bamboo to the water source. Where ditches could be dug to divert water, he would directly dig ditches. Where it was inconvenient, he would use bamboo to divert water.
The water source is not a point, but a stream. The stream is not small. The point he chose to divert water is not the location closest to his home, but the place where two water sources converge.
The water flow here is the largest. If we divert water at this point, we don't have to worry about the water supply being cut off all of a sudden even if we encounter the same high temperature as before.
At least it can last a little longer.
The clear water flowed along the bamboo into the fish pond, and hit the excavated yellow mud, suddenly becoming turbid.
The fish pond is not very shallow, so it takes a while to drain the water.
Zhao Yeqing stood at the bamboo water outlet and washed his hands with the cold stream water.
"This is great. It can also be used as a faucet."
They went home to cook and eat, and after they had filled their stomachs and washed up before going to bed, they went out to check the situation and found that the fish pond was only half filled.
Mu Xi opened the hole that he had dug in advance. This was a hole that had been opened in the soil wall connecting the rice field and the fish pond. It had been blocked with mud before, so water could not get through. Now that the mud at the entrance of the hole had been dug up, the water from the fish pond gurgled into the rice field.
"Let's go to bed. Get up early tomorrow morning and I'll go to the source and cut off the water."
Let the water drain slowly tonight. The rice fields can absorb a lot of water and won't overflow so quickly.
As soon as it was light in the morning, Mu Xi put on his coat and went out.
The fish pond was almost full, so he quickened his pace, ran to the water source, and used mud to block the hole he had dug in the same way, and the water stopped flowing out.
The rice fields had been soaked in water all night, and the originally solid mud had become soft. He took off his shoes and stepped into it. The cold stream water in early spring made him shiver even though he was not afraid of the cold.
The ground felt soft under my feet, so I tried to use a rake to push the dirt. Sure enough, a lot of it was flattened in a short while.
It's just that it's not clear through the water.
He came out of the field, picked up the hoe again, and started digging the glutinous rice field behind him.
It was almost noon when Zhao Yeqing got up, and Mu Xi had already dug almost half of it.
I have been very tired recently, and my sleep quality is so good, especially the current temperature which is cool but not cold enough to wake me up, it is so easy to sleep.
After washing up and walking into the kitchen, it was obvious that Mu Xi had not eaten breakfast in the morning. She first wandered around the kitchen and then went to see the animals at home.
My goodness, Zhao Yeqing was so angry that he made people laugh. He fed all the cattle, sheep, pheasants and chickens, but he himself didn't eat anything.
It was obvious that the fire had never been turned on in the kitchen, and the stove was cold.
She lit a fire, boiled water, and quickly cooked two bowls of noodles.
Shouted outside, "It's time to eat!"
Hearing the tone and volume, Mu Xi stopped swinging the hoe in his hand. He didn't know that Zhao Yeqing had already gotten up and was working so hard that he forgot the time. Now he looked at his watch and it was 11:30.
He threw away the hoe in his hand and walked quickly towards the house. He first went around to the back of the kitchen, fetched water from the well, washed his hands and feet before entering the kitchen.
Zhao Yeqing handed him the noodles with an expressionless face.
"I was wrong." Mu Xi didn't say anything else now, and he admitted his mistake very quickly.
Zhao Yeqing didn't know whether he should be angry or not. He wanted to say that he didn't take care of his body, but he had gotten up early in the morning to work, so if he had to say it, he really didn't do anything wrong.
She slept until noon, but that was because she was too tired in the past few days.
But she was indeed a little angry that he got up so early and didn't eat anything.
"You got up early to turn off the water, can you come back and lie down for a while? You went to work without eating. You have been working since 5 in the morning and have not eaten yet. Do you want to die?"
After saying that, Zhao Yeqing stuffed two poached eggs into his bowl with a gloomy face and fried them until they were crispy and golden.
"Eat it all."
The matter was not over until Mu Xi showed her the dishes that were so clean that they didn't need to be washed.
After eating, she pushed me to bed and took a nap.
After an hour's nap, when Mu Xi woke up energetically, Zhao Yeqing was sorting rice seeds in the yard.
"Most of them have already sprouted, so you can just plant them directly."
Mu Xi sat on the doorstep and changed his working shoes. "Okay, we only need to dig out half of the glutinous rice field. Then we can release the water from the rice field and dig ditches for the fields."
Zhao Yeqing put down the rice seeds in his hand, changed his shoes, and went with Mu Xi to dig the glutinous rice field.
The water from the rice fields was poured into the glutinous rice fields, so you can see clearly which parts are not leveled. After leveling the soil with a rake, there is still a lot of moisture in the soil, and it feels like wet and soft plasticine when you step on it.
The rice fields also need to be divided into ditches, that is, "earth beds" two meters wide are made in the fields, stretching from the head to the end of the field. There is a small ditch of several dozen centimeters between the beds, and water is stored in the ditch.
The soil bed was semi-moist. After spreading a layer of manure, Mu Xi scattered the sprouted rice seeds on it and tapped them gently with a bamboo pole to make the rice seeds sink into the soil. This is the wet rice seedling raising method.
Zhao Yeqing made two scarecrows and stuck them in the rice fields to prevent birds from stealing food.
The glutinous rice has not been planted yet, and Zhao Yeqing does not plan to use the same method to grow seedlings.
The moist seedling raising method was the one she used when she was in Meishan before, and she continued to use it after having had the experience once.
According to the notes of the original owner, he used the dry seedling raising method, which is to sow rice seeds directly on the land, and then dig them out and transplant them into paddy fields after they sprouted.
Both methods are feasible. The former is based on experience, but its disadvantages are also obvious. This is because the two people are planting early rice this time, and the current temperature is relatively low, which is not very suitable for the growth of rice seeds.
Later, we will have to cover the rice seeds grown using the wet seedling raising method with plastic film to keep them warm.
The dry seedling raising method will not be too cold. The seeds can be planted in soil with base fertilizer applied. The temperature in the soil is relatively high and it is not easy to freeze the rice seeds.
There are also disadvantages. Normally, plastic floppy disks are used for growing seedlings to prevent the seedlings from having roots intertwined. However, no plastic floppy disks were seen in the collapsed tool shed. I wonder if the original owner ran out of them last year and didn't have time to buy new ones.
The only solution is to use bamboo strips to separate the seeds and transplant them when the seedlings are seven or eight centimeters tall, so that the roots will not get stuck.
After working for a week, I finally finished taking care of the rice fields.
The next crop needs to be dealt with. Zhao Yeqing plans to half rest and half work, and dry the seeds leisurely at home for three days.
It can also be considered as giving myself a break.
Depending on the urgency of planting, the next seeds to be processed are corn and peanuts.
These two types of seeds also need to be dried before sowing. Drying the seeds can break the dormancy period of the seeds and increase the germination rate.
In the summer, seeds cannot be placed directly on the concrete floor to dry as they are prone to burns. Now there is no such concern as the sun in early spring is still relatively gentle.
Mu Xi said he didn't need to rest, so he picked up his hoe and went out to dig the ground.
Zhao Yeqing moved a small chair to sit in the yard, basking in the sun with the corn and peanuts to supplement calcium, and looked out through the open door -
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