Self-sufficient living | Creating land, welcoming light, and receiving water - Part 5 of the Land

Editor's note: In the old house and the poor land, Kou is carving out her ideal world bit by bit. A new chapter has officially begun - one's own food sovereignty, one's own salvation.

Many years ago, there was a popular song called "Dedication". The long road is dedicated to the distance, the rose is dedicated to love, the white dove is dedicated to the blue sky, the starlight is dedicated to the long night, the rainy season is dedicated to the earth, the years are dedicated to the seasons... Then what can I dedicate to you, my seedlings?

I am very greedy. I want to plant both grass and trees, flowers and vegetables in my small yard. Recently, I have become more and more whimsical and want to practice self-sufficiency. I must be honest and make a note: I will only try to be self-sufficient in vegetables, and just a little bit of fruit - for a fruit-unlimited player like me, I don’t have a mountain or forest, so I dare not even think about being self-sufficient in fruit, let alone self-sufficient.

Seedlings are not as greedy as humans. They need a long road, roses, white doves, starlight and love. Seedlings only need land, sunlight and water.

Let’s take it one by one, starting with land.

Need land

Creation. Creation is a special word, for example, "Genesis".

According to mythology, Pangu created the world with an axe, and the sky and the earth came into being naturally. As latecomers, the earth is born in our lives just like the sky, and we don’t think it is so precious. However, when I entered my own courtyard, I looked up at the sky, which was clear, and looked down at the ground, but I couldn’t find any land to plant.

Twenty years ago, when I just got this small courtyard, if I dared to say that I was self-sufficient, everyone would immediately laugh at me - to grow crops you need at least land, where is your land?

My land, including the house and the courtyard, covers a total area of ​​about 100 square meters. The courtyard is more than 9 meters from east to west and more than 3 meters from north to south, which is nearly 30 square meters. However, two small balconies have been solidified with cement, so the theoretically usable area is only about 20 square meters - please note the word: theoretically.

In fact, there is almost no area available to grow anything.

Because this place used to be a dormitory for the arsenal, more than 40 years ago, only two families lived in this small space. I used to only hear that "food is the most important thing for the people", but now I know that "housing is the most important thing" is equally important. In order to accommodate people, the small courtyard is airtight and filled with low self-built houses.

Creation

As an ignorant and fearless person like me, I have always believed that the bolder people are, the more productive they will be. If there is no land, then we can create it.

In myths and legends, land was created when an axe chopped it down. Here, I draw on the writing style of myths and talk about the trivialities of creating land and clearing construction waste. I will skip over the details and talk about the result: after the first year, I finally had land that could actually be cultivated.

My land is divided into three areas with different heights and sizes, namely the front and back of the house and my wall - although the drawing is really ugly, I have to show my ugly drawing to my readers - this is the cross-section of my house, with south on the left and north on the right.

The arsenal is located deep in the mountains and the dormitories are built on the hillside. I can only plant anything marked in red.

I guess the readers will laugh at it when they see it: in such a fragmented place, anything you plant will be just empty talk.

It doesn’t matter. Don’t forget my characteristics. The bolder a person is, the more productive he will be. Let’s talk about it later.

When I started to sow seeds, I realized that just because I had land, I couldn’t really grow anything. Land, land, only when there is soil on the ground can I grow crops. But my land had no soil.

Please look back at that ugly diagram. There is an additional yellow diagonal line. The dormitory of the arsenal was built on the hillside. This was the hillside line in the past. Only by "cutting the mountain + filling the mountain" did we get this land for building houses. My house is very lucky. It is built on the rock layer of Mount Tai, which is solid. But my crops are more difficult because they have no soil to take root. So after creating the land, we have to create soil.

Creating Soil

Creating the land requires slow progress. It's not that I'm not in a hurry, but there's no point in being in a hurry.

There is more than one meter of available space between the back of the house and the road surface. However, when I dug with the first shovel, I hit the sandy rock layer. When I dug with the second shovel, I couldn't dig any further because I hit the rock layer that had not yet been sanded.

I dug as much as I could from the sandy layer and planted a row of Ligustrum lucidum on top. In the first year, I watered them regularly and took good care of them. I wanted to trick these trees into thinking that they could still sprout and take root here. Although Ligustrum lucidum is a hardy and easy-to-grow greening tree, I was still unsure. I was afraid that my little trick would be exposed if the roots were planted. I was even more afraid that they would stop living and die in front of me.

Thank God, they not only survived the first year, but also the second year, and they bloomed white and fragrant flowers. It seems that these short shrubs are broad-minded and don't care about my little thoughts. In the third year, I left home thousands of miles away to work in Beijing. When I came back, I was so moved that I almost cried: my privet, no one cares about it, it is still alive, and it is growing taller than me.

I have to tell the truth and admit that I was a complete novice in planting twenty years ago. I had never planted a field and my limited experience in growing flowers was disastrous. Basically, whatever I planted died, almost reaching the level of Nun Miejue.

I didn't plant Ligustrum lucidum intentionally, but someone just happened to give me seedlings. I didn't expect that I would do the right thing without thinking. Those Ligustrum lucidums are the pioneer plants in the harsh environment behind the house. They are not green plants at all, but my comrades-in-arms-please, the task of creating soil behind the house is left to you.

Rotten, Evil and Bad

The small courtyard in front of the house is quite complicated. When I dug it with a shovel, it was not a rock layer, but all construction waste. I first cleared out the big pieces and then improved the sandy saline soil, which killed everything I planted. I have planted corn, sweet potatoes and various vegetables, Chinese toon, purple locust, fig and various trees, roses, roses, lilies and various flowers, basil, mint and nepeta, and various grasses. There have been so many births and deaths that I can't talk about them. I can only talk about how to improve the soil. I have bought chicken manure, sheep manure and various kinds of manure, and I have also made various composts and enzymes of bean dregs and vegetable leaves by myself. There are too many technical details to mention here. I can only say one word: rotten, evil and bad.

From the bustling city to my small courtyard in the mountains, you need to go through a country road. Most of the people in the mountains make a living in nurseries. On this road, I passed more than 80 nurseries. Taishan nurseries mainly grow pine trees. Every spring, they clean up a lot of pine needles (the needle-shaped leaves dropped by pine trees are called pine needles in the local dialect) and pile them on the roadside. After being exposed to wind and rain for a long time, they will rot and turn into black humus soil with white mycelium.

I always carry a large reusable bag with me. Every time I pass by, I kneel down under the pine wool pile and scratch and claw like a groundhog, dig up a bag of fluffy and soft pine wool soil, hold it in my arms and take it home like a treasure. Occasionally, mountain people pass by and ask me, " What are you doing with these rotten things? " - I learned another local dialect.

It's rotten, evil, and bad. No wonder they don't like it.

These unwanted treasures were brought home by me bit by bit, after several years, I have already lost count of how many bags I have brought back. The visible change is that the soil in the yard has become higher and higher, and has slowly turned into black, soft humus soil. When I planted blueberries this year, I searched online and found that strawberries prefer acidic soil. Generally, the soil is not acidic enough and they like to grow in humus under pine trees. Wow, I did it right again.

Planting seedlings, planting soil, planting yourself

Although I dare not dream of self-sufficiency in fruits, I can at least try to be partially self-sufficient. After careful consideration between "what I like" and "what is feasible", I decided to plant figs, kiwis, blueberries (also known as northeastern mushrooms), and Taiwanese finger mulberries. Finger mulberries are a dreamy delicacy that I didn't know until I arrived in Taiwan. Each mulberry is as long as a finger. I searched online for information and found that if you prune it properly, you can get several mulberries a year. The mulberry leaves cut off can also be eaten. It is a good thing. Such a good treasure, of course I have to plant it.

“Don’t plant mulberry trees in front of the house and don’t plant willow trees behind the house, and don’t let ghosts clap their hands in the yard.” These old sayings are all part of culture, we should respect them and just plant them behind the house.

The privet behind the house was just a small seedling as thick as a chopstick when it was planted. Over the years, it has grown into a "big tree", thicker than my arm, close to the mouth of a bowl, and taller than the roof. Every spring and summer, it blooms for four weeks, attracting bees from far and near. The soil under the privet tree is already black and mature. These pioneer plants have completed their work and it is time to wave their sleeves and leave.

For each tree, a hole about one meter in diameter was dug. The dug-out tree roots held mud, sand, and pieces of stone, large and small, recording the changes of the past twenty years. Those thin and weak seedlings took root in the rock layer that had not yet been sandified, turning the stones into sand and changing the land under their feet.

After planting them, I went to Beijing, and from Beijing I drifted to Hong Kong and Taiwan. After returning to our great motherland, I drifted into a deep prison. Although there has been no sea for more than ten years, now I see mulberry fields again.

After planting the finger mulberry, I left some privet tree buds. My neighbor was puzzled and volunteered to help dig them out - thank you very much, but no need! I have become accustomed to these small white-leaved flowers behind the house. If I leave a little root, they will still sprout.

These are no longer just a few trees, they are my companions. We do not have the divine power to create the world. These weak and mundane lives can only use their own strength, accompanied by time, to slowly create a piece of land and earth that belongs to us. 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 strata.

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