Chapter 381 Planting Fruit Trees
Road construction is proceeding in an orderly manner.
The village was building houses and repairing roads at the same time, plus all sorts of other tasks, and it looked like a complete mess.
But if you look closely you can see that there is order in the chaos. Everyone has corresponding work to do. They are not running around like headless flies, nor are they lazy or cunning. Everyone works hard at their job.
As time went by, the whole village underwent earth-shaking changes in a short period of time.
First, the remaining new houses were built, and the more than one hundred people who were originally crowded in the brush workshop moved into the new houses. The various items that had been piled up in the workshop were moved away one by one. The workshop no longer had to change rooms morning and night, and efficiency increased a lot.
Outside the workshop, as the house was completely built, most of the bricks, tiles and timber that had been stored were used up. The remaining materials that could be used were neatly stacked in an out-of-the-way place, and the unusable materials were transported to pave the road.
The same applies to wood. The wood that can be used to make brushes is placed in the yard of the brush workshop, and the wood that cannot be used is stored for other purposes.
The biggest difference is in Shen Qing's family.
Before, the kitchen at home was used for making soap. Oil refining, alkaline water extraction from wood ash, molds, demoulding, etc. almost filled up the large kitchen. It felt like there was nowhere to put one more person.
Especially since I have to cook at night, not only is it troublesome to move things around, but the workload is also huge.
Now the soap workshop has been built. It is like a courtyard house. There are separate places for boiling oil on the stove, extracting ash and making alkaline water, storing water in the warehouse, cleaning the well, etc. More than a dozen women have been added to expand production, but it is still spacious and not crowded at all.
Next is the main hall used for learning embroidery. Originally, dozens of people were crowded in there every day. Although they didn't have to worry about meals and everyone was very quiet and studious, with dozens of people coming and going, it was very inconvenient, even for going to the toilet.
Now that everything has been moved out, the kitchen has returned to its original state and is only used for preparing three meals a day;
The main room no longer had people coming in and out, and it became empty again;
Shen Qing just felt refreshed and no longer felt that the house was empty. He even felt that living in a big house was comfortable!
The difference in the village is that the stones and rocks that were picked up and cleared from the fields are all piled up in various corners. The first five days are used to level the ground.
Originally, only the ground was needed, but later Shen Qing said that planting flowers and plants could earn money, so he thought that the land on both sides of the house should not be wasted, so he cleared it all and planted flowers and plants!
After the land is leveled, they start laying hay, dead branches, and firewood, and finally pile up layers of large stones on top.
As the flames lit up, people standing on the roadside in the chilly spring were warmed up.
They stared at the fire, watched the wood burn out, watched the stones burn red, and began to fetch water bucket by bucket. The cold river water splashed on the red stones, making a "sizzling" sound, accompanied by thick white smoke rising.
Click, click.
Tiny noises came one after another.
"It's done! It's done!"
"The rock really exploded! It's amazing!"
"This method is really good. Who came up with it? It can kill the grass seeds and insect eggs in the soil and turn the rocks into small pebbles at the same time. It's really killing two birds with one stone!"
.....
Those who were young and had never served corvee labor uttered exclamations one after another.
The older people were obviously much calmer.
"The official road has always been built like this. It's even more meticulous than ours. No grass has grown for hundreds of years!"
"There's no grass or insects growing on it, and with the traffic and pedestrians that pass by, the road surface is very smooth, and it gets even smoother with age."
"Our village is fine too!"
"Alright, alright, we've just smoothed the road and broken up the rocks, there's still a lot to do! Let's get on with something else."
First, spread the gravel on the road surface and use a pusher to flatten it. People should go over and pick out the uneven places to ensure that the gravel on the same piece of ground is of similar size and not uneven.
Then use a heavy large grinding wheel to roll it over and over again to ensure that every part is pressed tightly and will not warp.
Finally, pay special attention to the joints between each section of road so as not to affect the overall smoothness of the road surface.
The later part was the delicate work. Shen Qing brought a group of people to inquire about the nursery market and seed shops, and began to transport fruit trees and seeds back - she secretly added those bought from the mall.
Peach trees, pear trees, sand apple trees, hawthorn trees, apricot trees, jujube trees, cherry trees... She specially put in many different varieties of cherry trees.
Local small cherries and imported large cherries, they are all planted and everyone buys them together. If the varieties grown are different, who would care to know?
Besides, what else can we find out?
The same is true for peaches and pears, but there are entire peach and pear orchards on Peach and Pear Mountain, so relatively few trees are planted.
Shen Qing picked the autumn white pear, which had a thick flesh, small core, golden skin and a sweet taste.
It tastes great when eaten directly, and can also be processed into preserved fruits, canned fruits, jams, and fruit wines. The ripening period spans a relatively long period, from June to September, and it can survive the winter.
The peaches are mainly yellow peaches, which lay the foundation for making canned yellow peaches later.
Then there are chestnut trees, which can be used as food. They also exist in the mountains, but who wants too much food? Naturally, they plant more, especially since the chestnut shells can be used as firewood, which is perfect for places with long winters.
Finally, grapes.
Grapes can climb vines and provide good shade in the summer. Grape racks made of wood are built on the small roads in the village for grape vines to climb.
Grapes will sprout ten days after being planted, and many varieties can be eaten the same year. Shen Qing has high expectations for grapes and is extremely careful in selecting grape varieties.
The first grape I decided on was the Yongle grape. This grape is seedless, has a thin and crisp skin, is sweet and sour, and has a slight rose scent.
Next was Kyoho, and I bought more than a dozen red and green grape plants.
I bought dozens of local grape trees.
Shen Qing was used to eating pure sweet grapes, but she missed the old varieties. In her memory, the sour and sweet grapes, which ripened naturally, had a special taste.
My mouth is watering just thinking about it...
Compared with fruit trees, flowers and plants are much easier to grow.
The holes for shrubs are small and shallow, and the holes for seeds are even simpler. The ground is leveled when the road is built. Use a hoe to dig a shallow ditch, sprinkle the seeds, sprinkle some wood ash, and then cover the soil on both sides.
Shen Qing and his group drove donkey carts carrying fruit trees during the day, bringing cart after cart to the village;
Others were responsible for planting, some dug holes, some supported trees, some filled the soil... Even the men and women who had finished work in the workshop used the morning and evening time to plant.
Time waits for no one. If you don’t plant in spring, you will delay it for a whole year!
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