Chapter 18
Growing Vegetables
Xiaohu was also taken aback by their response. He frowned and jumped a few steps back. This made Xiaohua burst into unstoppable laughter.
“Haha, this is a cow, a little flower cow.”
Mrs. Yang explained to her children what the creature was called. The three children nodded in confusion. No one in the village had ever raised cows, so they never knew what the animal looked like.
When Xiaoguo heard this, she didn’t correct Mrs. Yang. So be it. Flower cow it is, she’d explain next time.
When Xiaoguo and Zhuang Zhuang returned home, she allowed him to play with the calves while she took the seeds out of the basket. She planned to start planting them right after eating.
There were only so little seeds within a large basket. So much effort was required just to get this small amount of seeds.
Even with her self-healing powers, Xiaoguo was feeling a little tired from the bumpy ride on the carriage. The shabby carriage was made up of wooden planks, and there were no cushions on the seats. With each bump that they rode over, Xiaoguo felt like all the bones in her body were going to shatter.
Xiaoguo came to the kitchen again, wondering what to cook. She searched through the vegetable basket and brought out two eggplants and a cucumber. ”
Let’s just have some noodles
.” She thought to herself and started cooking.
After his meal, Zhuang Zhuang did not go to sleep. He was worried about the calves in the courtyard. Looking at the slightly gray sky, he asked worriedly, “Mom, where will cows live?”
There was no shed in the courtyard. But since the cows were still small, it should be fine to let them stay in the courtyard. “Shall we build a shed for the calves soon?” Xiaoguo asked Zhuang Zhuang.
“Okay.” Zhuang Zhuang replied and went to play with the cows again.
Xiaoguo remembered that there could be heavy rain. Judging by the look of the clouds, the rain should be torrential. She needed to prepare fodder for the cows in advance before the rain came. There were also some traps that she had set on the mountains. She wondered if there were any animals caught.
As she thought about what was in the mountains, Xiaoguo sped up what she was doing. Immediately after eating, she took out the seeds she bought. Based on the size of her plot, she decided that 20 seeds from each type of vegetable should be a good quantity to plant. The lady boss had told that these were catalyzed seeds and that they could be planted directly. This saved Xiaoguo the time of soaking them.
Xiaoguo picked up the hoe and started to loosen the soil. As the small plot had been neglected over the years, the soil had completely hardened. Vegetables would not grow under such conditions. She began to till the soil, turning out the moist layer below the white hardened surface. Once the tilling was done, she could start planting.
After the soil was all turned over, Xiaoguo began digging small holes within the plot. At this moment, Zhuang Zhuang stopped playing with the calves and came over to help. WIth each hole that Xiaoguo made in the soil, he would throw a seed in. “Mother, what kind of seeds are we planting?”
“These are eggplants. We’ll also plant beans, potatoes, cabbages, loofahs, and leeks,” said Xiaoguo, pointing to the ground at her feet. She showed him where each type of vegetables will be planted on the small plot.
With Zhuang Zhuang’s help, Xiaoguo managed to sow the seeds for eggplant, beans, potatoes and cabbage.
Loofah was planted on the side of the plot— next to a wall. When it grew taller, it would climb up the wall for support.
The remaining leek seeds were to be scattered . They could not be planted one by one.
Xiaoguo chose a patch within the plot and dug out five small ditches, each was two centimeters deep and five centimeters apart. The seeds were sprinkled evenly into the ditches.
After planting the seeds, she had to water the soil. She needed a lot of water to soak the soil completely. She didn’t ask Zhuang Zhuang to help as he was too small to carry the water. Xiaoguo fetched seven or eight buckets of water from the well all by herself and poured the water onto the plot. The water was quickly absorbed into the ground. It didn’t seem very possible to flood the soil at all.
She watered the soil another five or six times. After the last bucket of water was poured in, she began to see water pooling on the surface of the soil. She was finally done.
Xiaoguo glanced at the plot and was deeply gratified to see the fruits of her labor. It wouldn’t be long before vegetables started growing.
The weather was a little humid now, so Xiaoguo couldn’t stop to rest. She asked Zhuang Zhuang to wait for her at home while she went out to gather grass for the calves.
Zhuang Zhuang wanted to follow at first, but Xiaoguo persuaded him to wait at home.
If she were just cutting grass, she would have let him follow her. However, she still had to go up the mountains. Xiaoguo repeatedly reminded Zhuang Zhuang not to go out and wait for her at home. She then set off, carrying the basket on her back with a machete in hand.