The New Year begins after the twelfth lunar month. After the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, on the nineteenth day, the family begins to steam cakes and prepare food for the Tiancang Festival.
Tiancang means adding warehouse, which means that the granary of the house is full and the family has plenty of food and clothing.
Chun Niang and her two sisters-in-law used rice flour, wheat flour, bean flour, etc. to shape ingots, pots, baggage, sheep, cows, chickens, and dog-shaped lanterns, and steamed them in cages.
Then take it out, put cotton threads outside the lamp-shaped steamed cake, and pour a little castor oil.
At night, the Jiang family lights rice lanterns one by one and places them in every corner of the house, symbolizing prosperity, abundant crops, and abundant livestock in the garden.
Early the next morning, all the men of the Jiang family went out to carry water, and those carried soil. The water was poured into the water tank, and the soil was cultivated in a circle outside the circle of reed mats and grain.
Then pour all the grain from the grain bag at home into the grain pile until the grain pile is filled, and the grain piles up high to form a spire, which symbolizes abundance and contentment.
Chun Niang and her two sisters-in-law got up early in the morning and went to cook. They made liquid crucian carp soup, made dumplings and eggs, and fried the rice lanterns, noodles and lanterns made last night in lard for the family to eat.
Dumplings mean filling a warehouse, hezi means building a warehouse, and drinking fish soup means having plenty every year. These are all foods that should be saved.
When Chun Niang was making dumplings, she used the dough to make a few little hedgehogs and a few little mice, and placed them in the corner of the yard.
From the 20th day of the first lunar month, the rice vat at home must not be empty, the water vat must not be short of water, and there must always be food in the pot, even if you put a few steamed buns on it.
On the twenty-fifth day of the first lunar month, Mrs. Jiang Liu filled the ash pit with plant ash.
I saw her holding a sieve on one leg and a small wooden stick on the other as she walked and knocked. The green ash she shook off drew circles in the shape of grain cellars and grain stores in the yard, and then the three-ring and five-ring rings painted on those green ash
Outside the grain store, sprinkle rice, wheat and other grains, press the corners with a few stones, and then drive your own chickens in to eat.
This means that the warehouse is full of grain and the grain is abundant.
At noon, the Jiang family brought out the incense table and hung up the painted statue of Cangguan. The whole family lit lamps, burned incense and knelt down to pay homage to Cangguan.
After the Dajicang Festival, the entire Spring Festival in January is completely over.
Soon it was early March, and the weather gradually warmed up, making it a good time to transplant seedlings.
Yingbao took out dozens of grape vines and a bunch of pepper seedlings from the cave, and secretly placed them in the bamboo shed in his yard.
That bamboo shed has been managed by Yingbao, and Dad and the others built a new row of bamboo sheds on the vegetable garden outside the yard to serve as mushroom sheds.
"Dad, he has cultivated many seedlings. Where can I plant them?"
Yingbao pulled her father into the bamboo shed and pointed to a pile of seedlings on the ground, "That one is a grape from the Western Regions, and that one is a pepper seedling."
Jiang Sanlang squatted down and picked up a pepper seedling to check. "Is it really pepper?"
Pepper is a precious commodity. Although many aristocratic families are growing it now, its price is still extremely high and demand exceeds supply.
But there are no small mountain villages like Chuanhe Town.
Yingbao nodded: "No pepper, the pepper seeds he bought at Jiukang Medicine Hall in the county town are correct."
Jiang Sanlang didn't mean to distrust his daughter, but he found it incredible.
Is my daughter a human being or a fairy?
Nothing she took out was ordinary, including the water-treasure gourd that everyone had been rumored to have.
Jiang Sanlang felt that it should all have something to do with his daughter, and his second nephew Jiang Quanbu was just taking the blame for Yingbao.
But what about Bu Cong? He just needs to know about his daughter's magical legs. He will fight back whatever they say or suspect.
"What should I pay attention to when planting pepper?" Jiang Sanlang asked.
Since a group of women cultivated those vine seedlings, they must also know some planting methods.
Yingbao: "Pepper is drought-tolerant and should not be planted in humid areas. It is best to plant it in well-drained sandy soil fields. The same goes for grapes."
That was what a clerk at the pharmacy told her, and the clerk also listened to what a pepper farmer said.
As for grapes, she has grown them once before and already has some experience.
Jiang Sanlao thought for a while and said, "Our family might as well build a vineyard and a pepper garden."
Yingbao really meant that, otherwise she would have grown it herself.
But planting seedlings requires a lot of land, so she must get her father's permission.
After the father and daughter completed the calculation, Jiang Sanlang immediately went out to inspect the land.
It was initially decided to plant pepper and grapes in an east field outside the village.
But the place is remote and the seedlings are easily damaged by wild animals.
So Jiang Sanlang invited several villagers to help cut some bamboo and put a bamboo fence around the two fields.
It was a bit outrageous to have two pieces of dongteng fields inserted in a circle of bamboo fence, which attracted the villagers to come and watch.
"Third brother, what should I do?" Chen Yin asked while standing on the bamboo fence.
Jiang Sanlang and Chun Niang were digging a hole to plant seedlings. Without raising their heads, they said, "Plant some grapes."
"Grapes?" Chen Yin knew that he had secretly picked and eaten grapes from Brother Jiang's orchard.
"If we plant grapes in that area, wouldn't it be too much?"
After all, fruit trees are not fruit trees and cannot be used for food. If you plant one or two locust trees at home, planting too many will not only take up land, but may also increase taxes.
Jiang Sanlang cultivated a seedling and said, "It's not much. If you can't finish it later, you can make wine."
If it's not possible to sell it directly to a winery in the county town, my little girl won't say that.
Chen Yin scratched his head and pointed to the fence next door, "Grapes are grown there too?"
"Plant pepper on that patch." Jiang Sanlang dug up the soil with his legs, placed the grape seedlings inside, and then compacted the soil.
"What? Pepper!" Chen Yin jumped up, his eyes shining with excitement, "Third brother, my family is good at growing pepper?"
Is pepper a good thing? It’s worth selling so it’s easy to sell, and all the pharmacies in the county are rushing to buy it.
Jiang Sanlang glanced at him and said nothing.
Chen Yin ran in from the fence gate, blinked and asked: "Third brother, do I have pepper seedlings at home?"
"Yeah." Jiang Sanlang planted another grapevine in his legs.
Chen Yin chuckled: "Can you give it to your brother?"
"Let's wait until the pepper seedlings grow up."
The little girl said that the pepper vine can be cut and transplanted, and then there will be no need for pepper seeds to grow seedlings.
"Brother, please make an appointment first." Chen Yin squatted in the east and helped Jiang Sanlang plant seedlings.
Several villagers who were watching outside saw it, glanced at each other wrongly, and quickly ran in to help plant the seedlings.
Someone came to help, and soon the grapes were planted on a piece of land, and then pepper seedlings were planted.
Pepper is a climbing plant, and ginger Sanluochen is planted in a circle beside the bamboo fence, so that there is no need to install a climbing frame for them in the future.
Then, estimate the planting distance and plant the entire pepper garden.
Zhai Mule lets some of the seedlings grow bigger and then puts climbing frames on them.
Jiang Sanlang and his wife planted seedlings with several villagers, while Ying Bao watered the plants behind with a small bucket.
She used water from the cave, mixed with a little river water, and watered each seedling thoroughly.
The two courtyards were quickly filled with small seedlings, dots of green, and arranged neatly, which was very gratifying.
