The soil in the mountain col is very soft. These are natural organic fertilizers made by dry leaves and weeds, soaked in rain and snow, and putrefied. Use it to improve the soil quality, and the crops grown will have good harvests.
In the 1970s and 1980s, before fertilizers were widely used, everyone dug out the silt from ponds and ditches at regular intervals and spread it on the cleared land to improve the soil quality.
When growing rapeseed and vegetables, most of them use livestock manure mixed with plant ash and soil retting to make fertilizer.
The vegetables at that time were really delicious, but later on, with the addition of various additives and enlarging agents, the food lost its original nutritional value.
The two of them walked forward, and there were traces of digging along the way. Yao Xiaoqing collected some herbs in the forest, and the two of them slowly walked out of the bush.
At the foot of the mountain, I found a ditch in front of me. There was about half an acre of land beside the ditch, and there were plants with round and oval leaves.
The leaves have serrated edges, the upward-facing leaves are green and rough to the touch, the underside is white and wooly, and the petiole is also pubescent.
Something flashed through Yao Xiaoqing's mind, but she couldn't grasp it for a moment. Her intuition told her that this plant had great uses.
She looked at the straight stem as thick as her thumb and thought about it for a long time. She suddenly realized that this was ramie. The leaves could be used to raise silkworms, the roots could cure diseases, and the stems were raw materials for making clothes and paper.
Cut the ramie, remove the leaves, soak it and peel off the stem bark to get the light blue ramie fiber.
Yao Xiaoqing was very excited. Now it was better. As long as he made twine, he could weave cloth and he would have clothes to wear. Making a spinning wheel was easy, but the loom was a big problem.
Thinking of these, Yao Xiaoqing fell into deep thought.
Taro found some taro by the ditch. When he turned around, he saw her holding a plant in her hand and standing there blankly. She hurriedly shouted: "Xiaoqing, what's wrong with you?"
Yao Xiaoqing turned around and looked at Yuzi with bright eyes, "Yaozi, let's chop these back to the tribe. This thing is of great use."
"There are taro here, why don't we dig them back?"
Taro looked at the taro under her feet with reluctance. The woman from the Lingque tribe found it and was about to dig it away.
"Of course if you have taro, dig the taro first. If you cut these things later, they won't run away." Yao Xiaoqing walked over with a smile and started to dig the taro with a bamboo knife.
The taro growing beside the ditch has been around for several years. The root system is tangled and intertwined, and there are still stones and other objects in the soil. It takes more than ten minutes to dig out a nest of taro.
By the time the two of them had finished digging all the taro beside the ditch, the two backpacks were already full. When they looked up, it was getting dark.
"Tarozi is gone." Yao Xiaoqing shouted.
"Xiao Qing, it's too heavy for you to carry so many taros on your little back. I'll pick up some taros and put them in the vegetable basket." Yao Zi went up and picked out the taros from Yao Xiaoqing's basket and put them into the vegetable basket.
Yao Xiaoqing helped her lift the basket on her back. Seeing that her waist was bent and she still had to carry the two vegetable baskets, she worriedly asked: "Tao Zi, you carry so much and still need to carry the vegetable baskets, can you do it?"
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"It's okay, I'm strong." Yuzi walked away first.
Yao Xiaoqing had no choice but to carry most of the basket of taro on his back and follow the taro towards the mountain.
The two of them had just walked for a while when a skinny old woman and two skinny women emerged from the woods.
The thin woman looked at the two people walking away with jealousy, "We wish we had come earlier. Look, their baskets are filled with taro."
The young woman with a big black mole next to her nose said: "I heard her tell the woman just now that this thing is of great use. Let's cut it back and see if it can be eaten!"
The old lady touched the ramie leaf and muttered, "Can these leaves be edible?"
The woman with the black mole urged the two of them, "Hurry up, there are so many green poles, and it will get dark if we delay."
The three of them raised their stone knives and started chopping. In a short time, the piece of ramie was chopped bare. The three of them cut some vines, tied up the ramie, and carried it on their backs towards the mountain forest to the south.
Yao Xiaoqing returned to the tribe, wiped off the sweat all over his body, went back to the room, took out his notebook, and wrote down the steps for making twine in the notebook. He recalled the appearance of the spinning wheel he had seen in his previous life and sketched it.
Early the next morning, after returning from exercise, she took the taro and walked towards the ditch of the mountain col.
When they arrived at the ditch, Yao Xiaoqing and Yuzi were dumbfounded. Yesterday it was lush and green, but today it was a mess.
All the ramie trees were gone, leaving only the ramie roots in the soil.
Yao Xiaoqing stared blankly, almost crying, "Who did it? This thing is inedible, why are you rushing to cut it off?"
Taro Zi looked at Yao Xiaoqing's sad look and said guiltily: "Xiao Qing, you blame me, I won't let you dig those taros."
Yao Xiaoqing squatted there and was dull for a while. When he stood up, he saw that the circles under Tao Zi's eyes were red.
"I can't blame you, taro. Logically speaking, I should have dug the taro first. Besides, everyone has the right to take back the things in the wild. Why should we not allow others to cut them?"
Yuzi remembered that when they went back, the woman from the Lingque tribe was still in the mountain col. She looked at Yao Xiaoqing and said, "Xiaoqing, do you think the people from the Lingque tribe took her away?"
Yao Xiaoqing shook his head and said: "I don't think it's like it. Besides, even if they took it away, what would happen? Let's go! Let's go somewhere else."
Yuzi nodded, and the two of them searched along the ditch. They walked for more than an hour, but no trace of Ramie was found.
Yao Xiaoqing said to Yuzi in frustration: "Forget it, I'm too lazy to look for it. Let's go into the forest and look for any fruit trees."
"Yeah!" Seeing her disappointed look, Yuzi thought that thing must be very important, and thought about looking for it again tomorrow.
Yao Xiaoqing was beating in the grass with a wooden stick, scanning the plants in the forest with his eyes, and picked some wild fruits, some were sour and sweet, and some were bland and tasteless.
Yao Xiaoqing suddenly thought of the patch of wild grapes, wondering if they had been picked away.
"Tarozi, let's go up the mountain and take a look in the woods to the north. Is the wild grape plant I saw there last time still there?"
"Hey!" Yuzi put the fruit in her hand into the vegetable basket and followed her towards the mountain forest to the north.
The two of them did not go up the mountain, but walked directly through the forest and climbed up a hill. Under the hill grew a reed bamboo as tall as one person.
Yao Xiaoqing took two steps and suddenly squinted his eyes, staring at the reed leaf. After a moment, the smile on his face bloomed like a flower, and he cheered, "Sugar cane - here I come!"
The cheers frightened several birds flying in the tree. The birds chirped and flew away with fluttering wings.
Yao Xiaoqing rushed down the mountain quickly, grabbed one, broke it with a click, tore off the sugar cane leaves in twos and twos, revealing the black and purple sugar cane, picked it up and placed it on his knees, and broke it with a "click" sound.
After two sections, I handed one section to Yuzi who was panting after me.