Introduction to the vegetable garden notes

Growing flowers is good, but growing vegetables is even better. If the flowers are well planted, they will be colorful and fragrant and can be appreciated; if the vegetables are well planted, they will have tender green stems and leaves, plump roots and pulpy fruits, but they can be eaten. As the saying goes: "Melons and vegetables are enough for half a year."

I remembered the vegetable garden we planted in Lanjiaping, Yan'an.

It is said to be a vegetable garden, but it is actually an orchard. There are many peach and apricot trees in the garden, as well as crabapples. Every spring in February and March, the pink peach and apricot flowers bloom, and soon the gorgeous crabapple flowers bloom against the green leaves, which is very lively. When the fruits are ripe, the apricots are water apricots, the peaches are hairy peaches, and the begonias are like hanging beads, which is another prosperous scene.

Orchards are also gardens. There are many kinds of flowers in the garden. The woody ones include roses, hibiscus, and lilac, and the herbaceous ones include impatiens, dianthus, tuberose, Jiangxi waxwort, backgammon, etc. Grass and flowers are not expensive, but they grow lush and pungent. They are everywhere on both sides of the Yong Road, around the vegetable fields, and in every corner of the garden. Among the grass and flowers, the most luxuriant and pungent one is the cosmos, which grows in dense clumps all over the sunny slopes. This kind of flowers bloom thickly, some are purple, some are silvery white, layer by layer, exuding a rich fragrance; they also bloom for a long time and can decorate the whole autumn. This is very similar to wild chrysanthemums. This flower is called "chrysanthemum", which seems to make sense.

The vegetable garden mentioned was developed on the open space in the garden. The fruit trees are the screen, the grass and flowers are the fence, and there is a vegetable border in the middle. There are three or five places with different sizes. They are all places with fertile soil and sufficient sunshine, which are most suitable for growing vegetables. The place we operate is surrounded by fruit trees on three sides and a hillside on one side. The terrain is rectangular and covers an area of ??about 2/3. It was during the period when vegetables were being grown that three of us comrades ran it collectively in our spare time. The harvested vegetables are fed to the collective meal, and you can enjoy a relatively rich portion.

In those years, all the comrades in Yan'an were growing vegetables between work, study, and fighting.

Governments, schools, and the military can almost all be self-sufficient in the vegetables they eat. At that time, there was no idea of ??planting "ten sides", but every opportunity was taken advantage of, and naturally all "ten sides" were planted. Vegetables are grown in front of the door of the cave dwelling, in the left and right sides of the bungalow, by the river, on the roadside, and even in the newly opened land on some hills. The vegetable plot we planted has the best conditions in the garden. The soil was fertile and had been tended by someone before. It was considered a vegetable plot. Half of the land is a leek border. Leeks have perennial roots, so it doesn't take much effort (of course it will take some time). You just need to fertilize, cultivate the soil, and water them. After nine days, bright green and tender leek sprouts will sprout. The most rare thing is that there is a stone nest under the rock cliff in the northwest of the vegetable field. When the rocks and mud in the stone nest are dug out, spring water flows out from the cracks in the stone.

The stone nest is not big, but the water accumulated in it can just water the vegetable patch. When the accumulated water is used up, it can be filled up again in one meal. When the water is full, it clears to the bottom without overflowing or flowing out. It is a bit like the treasure vase in the fairy tale. There is still water after using it, but it is always full when it is not used. The spring water is clear and refreshing. You can water fruit trees without watering vegetables, or use it to wash your hair and clothes. "The water in Canglang is clear, so I can wash my tassel; the water in Canglang is turbid, so I can wash my feet." This is better than Canglang Water. Other comrades who also grow vegetables have no water springs near the vegetable fields and have to fetch water from the Yanhe River. Unlike the three of us, we dig a narrow and shallow ditch from the vegetable fields and use willow cans to fetch water. , raised his hand and poured the vegetables. Everyone envies us. We also felt that we were taking advantage of the natural conditions, as if our work was too light, and we were very embarrassed, so we made up our minds to plant and manage the vegetable fields well.

"The crops are like a flower, but the whole family relies on dung." In order to accumulate fertilizer, everyone went to the road to pick up manure during morning and evening walks. There were many livestock there. "As long as you use your hands, there are sources of fertilizer everywhere." We invited old farmers to give lectures, and everyone learned a lot from them. The farmer poet Sun Wanfu, the singer of "Tall Buildings Rise from the Ground", is one of the famous teachers. I remember that he was in his sixties at that time. He was energetic, his voice was loud, his speech was kind and simple, and his old and vigorous demeanor still left a deep impression on me to this day. From those teachers, we learned to grow vegetables, melons, and tobacco. For example, when growing melons, you need to soak the seeds and press the seedlings, and when growing tobacco, you need to chop and pinch the tips. We learned a lot of practical knowledge from the teacher while doing it. Some learn to flue-cure tobacco and make their own exquisite cigarettes and cigars; some learn to process vegetables and make tomato sauce that can be eaten until winter; some learn to pickle and store vegetables so that autumn vegetables can follow spring vegetables.

Growing vegetables is a delicate job, "growing vegetables is like embroidery"; it is also very tiring when done seriously. In terms of labor volume, "one acre of garden and ten acres of field". But growing vegetables is a lot of fun. The joy of growing vegetables is not only when eating vegetables, as Su Dongpo said in "Ode to Cai Geng": "Run the water from the deep spring and wait for the leaves and twigs to show."

Or like What he said in "The Concubine's Chrysanthemum": "Eat the seedlings in spring, the leaves in summer, the flowers in autumn and the roots in winter, and the common people will live as long as Xihenan Yang." The whole process of growing vegetables is fun at any time. Fertilizing, loosening the soil, preparing the fields, and sowing the seeds are probably the most labor-intensive times. At that time, the vegetables can’t even be seen. But "you will reap melons if you sow melons, and you will reap beans if you sow beans." Even if what you sow is just hope, that hope is very encouraging. Because that hope is planted with mature seeds in soil with sufficient water and fertilizer. If people are diligent and not lazy, they will definitely get a harvest for every effort they put in. The verification is not far away, within ten or eight days, you should pay attention to the flat and moist vegetable patch, and green, tender and strong new shoots of vegetables will grow from there.

Those new shoots and sowing lines are neat and tidy, the sowing ones are crowded, and the on-demand ones are proud and stand out from the crowd, smiling, shining, and full of infinite vitality. A new sprout is literally a shining pearl. "Spring leeks are cut on a rainy night" is probably a poem by Lao Du. It is extremely fresh. When growing vegetables in an old garden, wouldn't a bunch of vegetables be a fresher poem?

In late spring, at noon, when you step on the border to thin out seedlings or hoe weeds, the warm sunshine makes people feel comfortable all over.

The fresh earthy smell and the light vegetable fragrance are refreshing. After a while, stand up, stretch your waist, wipe the sweat from your forehead with the back of your hand, and see if the seedlings are dense, the depth of the plowing, and whether the grass is clean. At that time, people will feel the joy of labor. In the summer, in the evening, after the vegetable fields have been watered, three or five comrades take advantage of the bright moonlight to sit by the edge of the spring, smoking; or they don't smoke and just talk; they talk about life and the transformation of society and nature, while people giggle. Luo Luo, while listening to the chirping of insects in the vegetable patch during the break in conversation; garlic is sprouting, cabbage is rolling, and coriander is exuding a tender aroma: everything makes people feel a real pastoral joy.

In the vegetable plot we planted, in addition to leeks, there were onions, garlic, cabbage, radishes, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, etc. The farmer's proverb says: "Before and after Grain Rain, plant melons and beans." "Plant radish first and second vegetable." Although according to the season, various vegetables are planted early or late, and sometimes one kind of vegetable is harvested before that kind of vegetable is planted; but in addition to In the freezing winter, spring, summer and autumn, there are always several vegetables competing for fertilizer and green in the vegetable garden. Especially in late summer and early autumn, look at it: green radishes, purple eggplants, red peppers, and red and yellow tomatoes are really colorful and dazzling.

There was a good harvest of vegetables that year. I cut three stubbles of leeks, and finally I ate the leeks under the sprouts (like the lotus roots under the lotus, which are famous for being tender when old), and pinched the leeks. After spring cabbage, autumn cabbage was planted, and after water radish, white radish was planted. When even the currants and cosmos were about to fail in the garden, we harvested the last batch of tomatoes. The weather is getting colder, and the tomatoes taste sweet and refreshing, with a hint of autumn pear flavor. We also tied bright red peppers into strings and dried them in the sun, and hung them next to the cave window until the New Year.