Chapter 492: Who Can Afford It?
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Village Chief Zhao and Auntie Yang gathered their farm workers and picked all the ripe fruits and vegetables in the greenhouse. After a simple tidying, they packed them into small portions.
After a while, the three-wheeled convoy sent by Sheng Huaixuan arrived.
Everyone happily placed the fruits and vegetables in the car and sent them to the market one after another.
After a while, the stall was filled with people.
It was too surprising to see such fresh cucumbers, canola, eggplant, chili, persimmons, and strawberries in this season.
The baskets of beautiful strawberries were like flowers blooming in the winter.
Zhang Tiantian liked to eat strawberries. Be it strawberry jam, strawberry biscuits, strawberry cake, or strawberry cheese, she could eat a lot in one go.
Little Cat’s birthday was coming up. She wanted to give him the best strawberry cake in the world. Unexpectedly, when she went to Cui Muzhi’s shop to customize the cake, she learned that he had even used up all the strawberry cans, let alone fresh strawberries.
He asked her to customize other flavors of cake.
However, she just wanted to give the best strawberry cake to Little Cat as a birthday gift.
With a faint hope, Zhang Tiantian went to the market to look for strawberries.
What if there was a family that planted strawberries at home? It would just be enough for her to make a strawberry cake.
After walking for a long time, she did not even see a strawberry seedling.
Suddenly, Xiaxue exclaimed, “Miss, look there, there!”
“What’s that?”
Zhang Tiantian looked in the direction of Xiaxue’s finger and her eyes widened. She said in surprise, “Strawberries, so many strawberries!” She rubbed her eyes again. “Am I dreaming?”
Xiaoxue smiled excitedly. “No! Miss, let’s go over quickly. What if someone buys everything later?”
Zhang Tiantian immediately rushed to the front of the stall and said to Village Chief Zhao, “Uncle, give me ten baskets of strawberries.”
Ten baskets of strawberries were really a generous amount.
Village Chief Zhao said happily, “Sweet girl, the strawberries will spoil if you can’t finish it.”
Zhang Tiantian shook her head. “It’s okay. I have many family members. I can even make canned jam.”
Since she had said so, Village Chief Zhao helped her pack them. “It’s a total of one tael of silver.”
The people around them gasped. This was too expensive.
One tael of silver was equivalent to their monthly salary, and it was only for ten baskets of strawberries.
Even strawberries could not be eaten as a meal!
However, Zhang Tiantian shouted, “Uncle, you’re selling it too cheaply. Give me another 20 baskets!”
“My sisters, I’ll give each one a basket and make some more jam and cans.”
Everyone gasped again. They wondered if Zhang Tiantian still lacked sisters.
Apart from strawberries, Zhang Tiantian bought a few baskets of small persimmons. Seeing that there were many fresh vegetables here, she bought everything that her brother, parents and she liked.
Village Chief Zhao calculated the price. “It’s a total of six taels of silver.”
Xiaoxue took out the silver. Village Chief Zhao returned the change and got someone to help them transport it back.
Some fruits and vegetables were sold for six taels in a short while.
Village Chief Zhao still had such a big stall.
At the very least, it would be sold for dozens of taels of silver.
With such a huge profit, everyone asked Village Chief Zhao excitedly, “How did you plant this? My house has ground heating, so I planted a few small strawberries. The fruits are not even the size of a thumb. Your strawberries are red and big. They look sweet. Is there a trick to it?”
“That’s right. How did you plant this? Our family’s chives grew so poorly. Look at your eggplant. It’s as fresh as a girl.”
“Old Zhao, doesn’t the ground heating in your house cost money? You sold them for six taels of silver just now. You probably only earned eight coins right?”
Zhao Hongyun, who was talking, tried to plant vegetables at home with ground heating. He planned to earn a little money during the winter.
Unexpectedly, he made the house smell like feces. His wife scolded him for causing trouble.
He did not understand. Others could receive unanimous praise for planting mushrooms. If he did agricultural research, he might even win the Flying Sky Award. Why not?
Although he had failed, Zhao Hongyun did not give up. For the past few days, he had been wondering if the ground heating was too hot.
The temperature in the mushroom room could be controlled, but the interior was too dark. If they wanted to plant vegetables and fruits, they had to have light.
When Zhao Hongyun was at his wits’ end, he came to the market to shop and saw the person he hated the most selling fruits and vegetables.
His farming skills were clearly much better than Village Chief Zhao’s. Why could Village Chief Zhao become a crop researcher and enjoy all kinds of benefits?
Zhao Hongyun did not like Village Chief Zhao criticizing him and gradually stopped interacting with him.
Zhao Hongyun was excited and a little dejected to suddenly see Village Chief Zhao selling vegetables and fruits that were off season.
He was indeed inferior to Village Chief Zhao.
However, he was still very curious about how Village Chief Zhao had planted these fruits.
The most important thing for Village Chief Zhao to sell the greenhouse vegetables and fruits that day was to attract more people to understand the greenhouse technology. This way, they would invest in the planting of the greenhouse vegetables next year to resolve the problem of the supply of insufficient vegetables in the winter.
Village Chief Zhao smiled and said, “These are vegetables planted in a greenhouse. As long as you plant the vegetables in the greenhouse and keep it warm, you can plant them as you please all year round.”
As soon as he said that, everyone asked in confusion, “It’s so magical. What’s this greenhouse like? Is it more expensive than the mushroom house?”
Village Chief Zhao said, “If it wasn’t built by the sea, the cost of an ordinary greenhouse would be about the same as that of a mushroom house. If you want to build it in our Carefree City, in order to resist the typhoon, the cost of the greenhouse and the maintenance naturally will be higher. However, compared to the investment costs, the benefits are still high.”
“The Imperial Court is recruiting farmers to contract the greenhouse. If you’re interested and have any ideas, you can register first. I’ll arrange for you to take a look at the greenhouse.”
If they went elsewhere to build a greenhouse, they would be unfamiliar with the place. There would also be transportation fees. How many locals were as rich as the people Carefree City to buy fruits and vegetables to eat?
Unlike mushrooms, vegetables could not be dried and preserved for a long time.
Moreover, there were only fewer vegetables in the southern frontier in the winter. They could still eat pickled vegetables and radishes for a long time.
Everyone thought about it and felt that no matter what, they would not be able to earn much money.
Regardless of whether he was contracted or not, Zhao Hongyun wanted to see what was going on in the greenhouse. “Do 1 have to sign up for the contract before I can see the greenhouse?”
Village Chief Zhao smiled and said, “No, you can take a look first before deciding. The Imperial Court’s intention is to let the people plant while the Imperial Court pay for the greenhouse. If you want to grow anything, just pay a certain rent. The Imperial Court will also provide the technology. Your investment is not big. It’s more or less giving you money. The amount of land contracted has to be at least 100 acres per family.”
100 acres!!!
Who could afford this? This was too much..
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