Su Yuanyuan’s idea is to plant more sweet potatoes this year, as they are more drought-resistant, while corn might not yield any grain.
So the two of them thought about cultivating sweet potato seedlings outside.
They prepared a lot of branches, and in Su Yuanyuan’s space, there was thick plastic sheeting.
However, they still lacked straw mats, which are needed to cover at night for insulation.
So the two of them went to the uncultivated land to cut grass, but the grass was too dry to weave into mats.
Su Yuanyuan didn’t want Tan Shaoting to know that her space could be used for planting, so she went to all this trouble.
In the end, they went to the station to buy twenty pieces, as the station was buying these. There were elderly people here who couldn’t work anymore and would weave straw mats to exchange for money.
After buying them back, the two hurriedly loaded sand onto the cart.
Su Yuanyuan had seen her grandmother make sweet potato pits; back then, her grandmother would always go to the market to sell sweet potato seedlings.
The two of them marked out about three acres of land, intending to prepare a lot of sweet potato seedlings. If there were enough, they planned to plant twenty acres of corn and the rest with sweet potatoes. This way, despite the drought, they should have a harvest.
Yanli ca over a few tis and helped out, knowing that Su Yuanyuan wanted to plant sweet potatoes. The Zhao family siblings also planned to plant sweet potatoes, so the sweet potatoes Su Yuanyuan gave them couldn’t be eaten and were all kept to grow seedlings.
They knew how to do it, so they also prepared the land, doing exactly as Su Yuanyuan did.
Other people on the farm knew that the two teenagers wanted to plant sweet potatoes.
Last year, they had no harvest, and even to grow sweet potato seedlings, there weren’t enough. So they went to each group leader and then to Director Feng.
One day, the two were stripping the leaves off the corn stalks, as the leaves could feed the livestock, and the remaining stalks would be used for fuel.
They saw Director Feng and Group Leader Ma coming over. The two of them took off their masks, "Director Feng, Group Leader Ma, why are you here?"
"Xiao Tan, I heard you two wanted to plant sweet potatoes on a large scale?"
Tan Shaoting nodded, "Yes, we think sweet potatoes are more drought-resistant, and we don’t dare to plant corn."
"I also think sweet potatoes are more drought-resistant." Ma Changshun nodded, their family also decided on planting sweet potatoes.
"Do you two still have many sweet potatoes? Can you still grow seedlings?"
"We have enough sweet potatoes for our use." They still needed to give so to the Zhao siblings, which would really not leave much.
"The station still has so. If necessary, sell them to each household and let them grow their seedlings.
Besides planting sweet potatoes, what else will you plant?"
"Twenty acres of corn and twenty acres of potatoes."
"Just planting that little grain?"
"Director Feng, if we plant and end up with no yield, we might as well plant sothing else. This way, at least we can eat and won’t starve."
Feng Baoshan had no words this ti, thinking this was the only way.
They went back to arrange the sale of sweet potatoes, while the two went back to their household chores.
There is no idle ti in the countryside; work is everywhere.
The two cleaned up the corn stalks outside the courtyard and planned to start making the sweet potato pit the next day.
"Do you think, with so much firewood, should we warm the sweet potato ridges as well?"
"Even if the sweet potato seedlings co out early, they still can’t be planted, right? Otherwise, won’t they freeze to death? No need to rush."
Su Yuanyuan nodded, having forgotten about that. Temperature was a big issue.
The next day, the two started pulling the donkey to plow the land. By the end of the day, they had plowed three acres, but it was really too dry. At this rate, even if planted, nothing would co out.
Tan Shaoting looked at the dispirited little girl. "Why don’t we water it at night? Don’t worry, if we can’t figure it out, others will have even less luck."
"But if we do that, we’ll stand out."
"It’s okay, just say we worked at night."
After dinner, they cultivated for a while before heading out. However, Su Yuanyuan stopped.
"Let’s plant the sweet potatoes during the day and then cover them with plastic film. Otherwise, I’ll feel heartache if it dries."
They had filled so storage bottles with water, but it certainly wouldn’t be enough.
The next day, the two began planting sweet potatoes, covering each row with plastic film after planting.
They only managed to do one acre in a day as the work was really tedious.
At night, Tan Shaoting didn’t use Su Yuanyuan’s help; he independently used his superpower to water the acre.
The next day, Su Yuanyuan checked around. Thanks to the straw mats, the plastic film was covered in dewdrops and looked great.
It took them three more days to finish the rest of the land.
There were still so sweet potatoes in the space. Tan Shaoting suggested planting them all and turning them into seedlings.
"Even if you give them to the Zhao siblings, they might not necessarily be able to grow seedlings."
"We’re running out of straw mats."
"I’ll go ask around today." Everywhere has restrictions; there’s no helping it.
Su Yuanyuan only uncovered the straw mats during the few hours around noon and covered them all again by two in the afternoon. It’s another tedious task.
But there’s no other way. There are too many sweet potatoes they want to plant. That’s over a hundred acres; even if one acre uses a thousand seedlings, one hundred thirty acres require a lot of sweet potato seedlings.
The sweet potato seedlings grow batch by batch. When they’re about a foot long, they can be picked, and then the sweet potatoes continue to grow more seedlings.
When Tan Shaoting ca back, he brought so with him, estimated to be enough for just two ridges. So the two started turning the land again.
By then, many families on the farm had also begun growing seedlings.
The fields were filled with many people working. Su Yuanyuan could only see small black dots, knowing they were people working.
By the end of April, the sweet potato seedlings were sprouting.
The two began making sweet potato ridges. Anyway, they weren’t worried about water evaporation, mainly because there wasn’t any evaporation.
"Yuanyuan, shouldn’t we make the sweet potato ridges bigger?"
"In theory, yes. After all, sweet potatoes grow in the soil. With larger ridges, the soil is loosened, so they grow faster."
The two turned the entire plot of land, and at night used superpower to make sweet potato ridges.
Like this, until the first batch of sweet potato seedlings was ready, Su Yuanyuan felt the temperature was still low, so she pulled up the seedlings, stored them in the space, and continued making ridges with Tan.
Twenty days later, the second batch of sweet potato seedlings was ready.
They had already made ridges for over a hundred acres of sweet potatoes.
"Should we plant the sweet potatoes first or the potatoes?"
A few days ago, Su Yuanyuan and Tan had cut the potatoes into small pieces and soaked them in Spiritual Spring Water. They could be planted now.
"Tonight, we’ll water and cover with mulch. We’ll plant potatoes tomorrow."
Tan Shaoting absolutely listened to Su Yuanyuan. Although she appeared younger than him, he just felt he should.
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