Chapter 493: Chapter 255: Germination_1
The sun hung high in the sky, and the wind blew warmly onto faces, making people who had endured almost an entire winter feel an unparalleled comfort in their limbs and bodies.
Lian Manman stretched out her arms and legs outside the house. After the Qingming festival had passed, Lady Zhang finally agreed to let her shed the thick cotton pants and jacket for lighter quilted garments. The sudden alleviation in weight made Lian Manman feel more agile and strong in her limbs.
Lady Zhou walked out of the Upper Room carrying a ladle of rice bran, intending to go to the chicken coop to feed the chickens. As soon as she lifted her eyes, she saw Lian Manman’s smiling and hopping figure, which immediately felt like a thorn in her eye.
Lian Manman also saw Lady Zhou, and with one look at her sullen face, she chuckled to herself. Not waiting for Lady Zhou to speak, she agilely retreated to the West Wing Room.
On the kang bed in the West Wing Room, several large bowls and dishes were lined up, each one tightly covered with damp gauze.
As the weather warmed, it was time to plant vegetables. In order to increase the yield, farmstead households would germinate the vegetable seeds before sowing them, such as cucumbers, pumpkins, hairy gourds, and green beans. Some other vegetable seeds weren’t suitable for germination, including eggplants and cabbages, which could be scattered directly into the soil at the time of planting.
The method of germination for the tenant farmer’s households was simple, picking out the plumpest seeds, placing them in bowls or dishes, sprinkling water, and covering with gauze to retain moisture. Then, they needed to be kept in a warm place, with daily watering to maintain the humidity.
Lian Manman was in charge of keeping the bowls and dishes with seeds warm on the kang bed. At noon, when the sun was at its strongest, she would move these containers to the windowsill where they could catch the sunlight, which helped the vegetable seeds germinate faster.
"Sister, have they sprouted yet?" Lian Manman asked as soon as she entered the room and saw Lian Zhizhi lifting the gauze to check the condition of the seeds.
"Almost there, I think they can be planted in a couple of days," Lian Zhizhi replied.
Lian Manman climbed onto the kang and inspected each bowl in turn. The green beans had the best sprouts, while the hairy gourd had the slowest, perhaps because it was still wrapped in its hard outer shell. However, it didn’t matter that it sprouted slowly since hairy gourds were usually planted last anyway.
Hairy gourds weren’t an essential vegetable but rather a snack for the children. Most farmsteads would plant a few hairy gourds on the edges of vegetable beds or other idle corners, enough for the children to munch on without taking up precious vegetable garden space.
After checking the vegetable seeds on the kang, Lian Manman climbed down. In one corner of the room against the wall, a nursery bed had been constructed from broken bricks and stones, filled with fine sand in which potato segments were buried. Potatoes weren’t sown from seeds but propagated through sprouting tubers. Crouching down, Lian Manman could see potato sprouts poking through the sand. She checked and found most of the potato segments had sprouted and, after a few more days, they would be ready to transplant into the vegetable field.
Having checked on the potato sprouts, Lian Manman stood up and looked outside. She had snuck back from the store in a hurry, anxious to see how the vegetable seeds were germinating. As it approached noon, she needed to return to the store.
"Sister, I’m heading back to the store," Lian Manman said to Lian Zhizhi, "Are you coming with me?"
"Wait a moment for me. I just fed the pig, and now I need to go add more food for the chickens and ducks... Manman, can you top up a ladle of water for the pigs?" Lian Zhizhi requested.
"Okay," Lian Manman agreed, scooped up a ladle of water from the outside water jar, and walked to the pigsty entrance. The wall of the pigsty towered over her by a good margin, and the stone-built door was about the height of her own stature. Stepping on a protruding stone at the pigsty door, she leaned over the door, only then able to pour the water into the half-broken wooden bucket that was used to hold water for the pigs.
The three piglets in the sty, having heard the movement, all snorted and jostled out of their shed, crowding around the bucket to drink.
The three piglets had grown a substantial amount, and Lian Manman estimated that each was now over two feet in length, having likely doubled their weight. With this rate of growth, by New Year’s they would be three fat pigs. Lian Manman smiled at the thought, turned to check the pig feed trough next to the water bucket, and noticed leftover food. Such was the nature of pigs; even if they had just eaten, they would still come running for another meal as soon as someone came to feed them again.
