Gourd Farm Chapter 13
Translated by Etherna (ko-fi)
Chapter 13: Purchasing Greenhouse Materials
Yang Feng and his boss arrived at the steel pipe outside and looked around as the boss introduced the available options. After some consideration, they decided to purchase a six-meter wide one.
After paying for the purchase, Yang Feng provided the boss with an address and requested that the materials be delivered via tricycle in the afternoon.
As for the plastic film and black mesh, Yang Feng couldn't carry them on his bike, so he asked the boss to include them in the delivery as well.
With this major purchase done, Yang Feng was left with very little money.
Yang Feng rode his bike to the seed store and bought some fruits and vegetables. The strawberry season was almost over, but they could still plant another season of watermelons and cucumber fruits.
After having lunch at home, Yang Feng took his farming tools and went to the field to even out some of the uneven spots.
To his surprise, despite his uncle's reputation of being unskilled, he was quite knowledgeable about farming. The soil was turned finely and the field was almost perfectly flat.
After planning out the field, Yang Feng intended to use some lime powder, but unfortunately, it was not available in the village. He had to use plain flour as a substitute, which made him feel a bit reluctant.
To mark out the area where the greenhouse would be built, he used plastic cords to straighten the boundaries and fixed them in place with wooden sticks. Then, he used the flour to mark the boundaries, which made it much easier to build the greenhouse later and prevented any misalignments or rework.
To build the greenhouse, Yang Feng had to ask many people for advice and learn on the spot.
"Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom."
The sound of a three-wheeled motorcycle came through, probably the vehicle delivering the greenhouse steel pipes.
Yang Feng put down his farming tools and prepared to go meet them. Most of the people in the village couldn't be relied on, so if he didn't go, he wouldn't be able to find them.
As he reached the village entrance, he saw the three-wheeled motorcycle parked under the old locust tree, and it seemed like they were asking for directions. To his surprise, it was his uncle who had been asked for directions.
"What a coincidence!"
He approached the delivery driver and confirmed that the goods were his.
As Yang Feng was about to leave, his uncle spoke in a sarcastic tone, "Oh, isn't this the planting expert who returned from the big city?"
Yang Feng didn't want to bother with him. Since their last altercation, he had not spoken to his uncle at all and didn't even bother to acknowledge his presence.
That's just how people are. If you don't take me seriously, then you're nothing to me either.
As Yang Feng ignored him, Uncle's face turned red and purple. After all, there were still many people under the acacia tree, which made Uncle, who was usually concerned with his reputation, feel a little embarrassed.
Yang Feng didn't care about all this. If anyone was to blame, he would blame himself. He was always acting like he was superior because of his age, and he looked down upon others.
He had the delivery driver put the steel frames beside his home in Langfang first, and he would move them there when he built his own place. They were hollow and not too heavy, so he was afraid they would be stolen if he left them in the field.
After everything was sorted out, he covered them with plastic wrap to prevent rusting in case it rained.
It was already evening, and just as he was about to go to the vegetable garden to water his plants, Big Aunt, who loved to gossip, along with a few other stay-at-home women, came over.
"Xiaofeng, I heard you're planning to build a greenhouse?" Big Aunt, with her loud voice, came over to Yang Feng and asked.
"Well, I don't really know what to plant, so I thought I'd try building a greenhouse first."
"Don't fool me, tell me the truth, do you have any planting skills? I heard them talking about it under the old locust tree just now."
"Uh, what did they say?"
"They were all talking about how you learned some high-tech stuff in the big city and are planning to build a greenhouse now that you're back."
"High-tech? I don't even know how they found out."
It's really impressive how quickly these people spread rumors.
"Let me tell you, Xiaofeng, you can't just build a greenhouse haphazardly. Haven't you heard about the family in the neighboring Wang Village who built a greenhouse and lost over ten thousand yuan last year, that even the wife ran away?"
"That's right, and there's also the Zhang family in Zhang Village who grew cauliflower. They lost a lot of money last year and still owe the bank a lot of loans."
...
Yang Feng listened to their chatter, and not a single good word was said. It gave him a headache.
These people had nothing better to do than to gossip about these things. He didn't have time to waste with them.
"You guys keep talking, I'm still busy."
Aunt Hua watched as Yang Feng ran away with his bucket and shook her head helplessly. "This child is still young and doesn't listen to the advice of the elderly. He'll learn the hard way."
...
Looking at the strawberries in the vegetable garden, he knew there were still enough to sell, and there were plenty of vegetables left. Apart from the owner of the store, he could sell them for another week.
After watering all the crops, Yang Feng arrived at the watermelon field. Some of the watermelons had already produced fruit, and a few were as big as fists. The watermelon harvest looked promising.
This batch of watermelons was being used as an experimental plot. If the results were good, the first batch in the greenhouse would consist of watermelons and cucumbers.
By selling the two crops together, he could increase his income more quickly.
After finishing up with everything else, there were a few inconspicuous plants in a corner of the vegetable garden. These were potatoes that were bought on the street earlier. There were too many to eat, and fearing they would rot, they were casually buried in the vegetable garden. Unexpectedly, they had grown quite well.
Perhaps due to the fertilization from the gourd water, these potatoes had grown quite large. However, it was unclear whether they had matured properly in the soil, as there was no prior experience with them.
Taking the nearby iron fork used for digging, he found one of the roots and began digging it out. It was similar to digging sweet potatoes - simply follow the root down.
"Crack."
As he was using the iron fork to dig, he might have hit some gravel, which made him exert more force and lift up the soil, but the potato didn't come up. However, he could already see two potatoes.
He used his hands to remove the soil covering them and picked up one of the potatoes, weighing at least two pounds.
Looking at the size of this potato, he felt that there might be more, so he continued to dig and unearthed eight or nine more.
"Oh my goodness."
This potato plant produced nine whole potatoes, which were all dug up and created a big hole in front of me. Perhaps due to the potatoes, the soil was squeezed to the sides.
Looking at the 40-50 potatoes in front of me, I estimate they weigh around 180 pounds.
"It's like planting flowers with care but not seeing them bloom, while accidentally planting willows and seeing them thrive."
When Yang Feng used to sell potatoes on the street, they were three yuan per catty, but they were all white-heart potatoes. The yellow-heart ones were even more expensive.
Looking at the potatoes in front of him, they are all yellow-heart and each one weighs at least one kilogram.
He has never seen such large potatoes before, they would definitely sell well if he were to take them to the street.
Despite the fact that there aren't many of them, and they won't be worth much money, he still made the decision to bring them to the street tomorrow and try to sell them. With a bag in hand, he started filling it up with the potatoes.
"Xiaofeng, what are you busy with again?"
He looked up and saw that it was a young man.
"Oh, I planted some potatoes and plan to sell them on the street."
"Wow, these potatoes are really big! I've never seen such big ones before."
"Here, take two home and fry them up."
After saying that, he handed two potatoes to the young man.
"Thank you so much. These potatoes look really good."