Self-sufficient life | Creating land, welcoming light, and carrying water - the land chapter (5)

Author | Kou Yanding

Editor | Crane bitter frog

Editor's note: In the old house and the poor land it depends on, Sister Kou is digging out her ideal world little by little. A new chapter has officially opened - your own food sovereignty, your own salvation.

There was a popular song called "Dedication" many years ago, the long road is dedicated to the distant roses to love, the doves are dedicated to the blue sky and the stars are dedicated to the long night, the rainy season is dedicated to the earth, the years are dedicated to the seasons... So what should I dedicate to you? , my seedlings?

I am very greedy. I want to grow grass and trees, flowers and vegetables in my small courtyard. Recently, I have become more and more whimsical, and I want to practice self-sufficiency. It must be honestly remarked: I only try to be self-sufficient in vegetables, and only when I order fruit - a player like me who has unlimited fruit, there is no mountain and forest, and I can't even think about being self-sufficient in fruit, let alone self-sufficiency.

Seedlings are not greedy, they need long-distance roses, white doves, stars, and love, and seedlings only need land, sunshine and water.

So come on, let’s talk about the land first.

have a place

Create land. Genesis is a special word, for example, "Genesis".

In myths and legends, Pangu opened the sky and the earth, and with an axe, the sky and the earth were naturally created. As a latecomer, the earth is innate in our life like the sky, and we do not feel that it is very precious. However, when I entered my own small courtyard, looked up at the sky, the sky was clear, and looked down at the ground, but I couldn't find a place to plant.

Twenty years ago, when I first got this small courtyard, if I dared to say that I was self-sufficient, I would immediately laugh at people - at least you need a land to grow something. Where is your land?

My site includes a house and a small courtyard, all covering an area of about 100 square meters. The small courtyard is more than nine meters from east to west, and more than three meters from north to south. The area is only a few dozen square meters - please pay attention to the wording: theoretical.

In fact, the area where things can be grown is practically zero.

Because this used to be the dormitory of the arsenal, more than 40 years ago, two families lived in this little place. It turned out that only listening to "the people take food as the sky" is very important. Only then did I know that there is an equally important "living as the land". house.

Created

An ignorant and fearless person like me has always believed in how daring people are and how prolific they are. If there is no land, then we will create land.

In myths and legends, the ground is created with an axe. Here, I draw on the mythical brushwork, which is related to the trivial matters of cleaning up the construction waste. I have gone through the details and said the result: After the first year, I finally have a plant that can actually be planted. ground.

My ground is high and low, large and small, and it is divided into three areas, which are the front and back of the house and my wall. Although it is really ugly, I have to ask my ugly pictures to show readers. This is my home. Sectional view, left-south, right-north.

The arsenal is located deep in the mountains, and the dormitories are built on the hillside. Only those marked with red can be planted.

It is estimated that readers will laugh at it when they see it: in such a fragmented place, everything is afraid of floating clouds.

It doesn't matter, don't forget my characteristics, how bold and prolific people are, and so on.

When I started to sow, I realized that it is not the land that can really be planted - the land, the land, and the land can only be cultivated if there is soil on the ground. But my land has no soil.

Please look back at the ugly schematic diagram, there is already a yellow slash. The dormitory of the arsenal is built on the hillside. This is the former hillside line, "splitting the mountain + filling the mountain", and this is the place to build the house. My house is very happy, built on the rock formations of Mount Tai, and it is reliable. But my crops are more difficult, and there is no soil to take root. So after the creation of the earth, the earth has to be created.

create soil

Create soil, take your time. It's not that I'm not in a hurry, it's that I can't be in a hurry, it's useless to be in a hurry.

Between the back of the house and the road, there is more than one meter wide available. However, the first shovel digs down, and the sandy rock layer is dug, and the second shovel goes down. With my ability, I can't dig directly, because I dug into the sandy rock layer. rock formations.

The sand layer was dug as much as possible, and a row of privet leaves was planted on it. In the first year, I watered them often and served them carefully. I wanted to deceive these trees and make them feel that they could still sprout and take root here. Although Privet is a pungent and easy-to-live green tree, I still don’t know the bottom line, and I’m afraid that the root of my mind will leak out. I am even more afraid that they will quit life because of this and die for me to see.

God bless them, they not only survived the first year, but also the second year, and they also bloomed white and fragrant flowers. It seems that these small shrubs have big hearts and don't care about my little thoughts. In the third year, I left home thousands of miles to be a North drifter, and when I came back, I was so moved that I almost cried: My privet, no one cares and no one asks, she is still alive, and she is taller than me.

I have to tell the truth and admit that I was a 100% planter 20 years ago. I have never planted any fields. My limited experience in planting flowers is unsightly.

It was not intentional to plant privet, but it happened that someone sent seedlings. I didn't expect that they would do the right thing in a confused way. Those privet were made by nature to be the pioneer plants in the harsh environment behind the house. Where are they green plants, they are my comrades in arms - please, the task of creating soil behind the house will be handed over to you.

rotten bastard

In front of the house, the situation is more complicated. One shovel digs down, not rock formations, but all construction waste. First, clear out the big pieces, and then improve the sandy saline-alkali soil. I have successively planted corn sweet potatoes and various vegetables, toon, locust, figs, roses, lilies, and basil, mint, and nepeta. I have bought all kinds of chicken manure and sheep manure, and I have made all kinds of compost and enzymes for bean dregs and vegetable leaves. There are too many technical details, so I can only skip it here, and just say one word: rotten and evil.

From the noisy city Shili Hongchen to my small courtyard in the mountains, we need to go through a country road. Most of the people in the mountains make a living as nurseries. On this way, there are more than 80 nurseries. The Taishan nursery is dominated by pine. Every spring, a lot of pine hairs (the needle-shaped leaves dropped by pine trees are called pine hairs in the local language) are cleaned up and piled on the roadside. After a long time of wind and rain, they will rot and turn white. Mycelium of dark humus.

I always carry a large reusable bag with me. Every time I pass by, I kneel under the pile of loose fur, scratching and scratching like a marmot, digging up a bag of fluffy and soft loose wool, and taking it home in my arms like a baby . Occasionally, people in the mountains would pass by and ask me: " Why do you make these rotten bastards? " - I learned another local dialect.

Rotten, evil, and cowardly, no wonder they don't like this thing.

These unwanted treasures from the mountains were bitten by my ants and moved home little by little. After a few years, I can't remember how many bags I moved back. The visible change is that the soil in the yard has become higher and gradually become Black soft humus. When I was planting blueberries this year, I searched the Internet and mentioned that strawberries like acidic soil. Generally, the acidity of the soil is not enough, and they like to grow in Panasonic mulch.

sow seed

Although I don’t dare to think about fruit self-sufficiency, I can at least try to be self-sufficient in part. After careful consideration between “what I like” and “practical”, I have determined that the fig, kiwi, blueberry girl (also known as the Northeast mushroom) is Taiwan finger mulberry. Finger mulberries are a dreamy delicacy that I only learned about when I arrived in Taiwan. Each mulberry is as long as a finger. I searched the Internet for information and found that as long as it is properly pruned, it can be harvested several times a year. The pruned mulberry leaves can also be eaten, which is a good thing. Such a good baby, of course, needs to be planted.

"If you don't plant mulberry before and after, don't plant willow in the courtroom, don't let ghosts clap your hands", the old saying is all culture, if you want to respect it, then plant it behind the house.

Privet at the back of the house, when it was planted, it was just a small seedling with the thickness of chopsticks sticking to the ground. It has become a "big tree" over the years. It is thicker than my arm, close to the mouth of the bowl, and higher than the roof. Far and near, the bees fly and dance. Under the privet tree is already dark mellow soil.

For each tree, a large hole about one meter in diameter was dug. The roots of the dug up trees hold mud, sand, and stones, big and small, recording changes over the past 20 years. Those slender and weak seedlings put their roots into the rock formations that have not yet been sanded, turning stones into sand and changing the ground under their feet.

After planting them, I went to the north to float, from Beijing to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and back to the great motherland, and then to the deep prison.

After planting finger mulberry. I also left some privet tree pockets, and the neighbors were puzzled and volunteered to help dig it up - thank you, thank you, no need! I'm used to having these little white-leafed flowers at the back of the house. If you leave a little root, they will still sprout.

This is no longer a few trees, but a companion who walked with me. We do not have the divine power to open up the world. These mortal and weak beings can only use their own strength, accompanied by time, to slowly create a piece of land and land of their own. We not only experience the fragrance of flowers and the sweetness of fruits together, but also use our lives to cherish the experience of creating the earth in the rock formations.

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