Who knows! As soon as I returned to the mountains to farm, I encountered a natural disaster.

I originally planned to plant soybeans, but then I thought about it, soybeans and corn can be interplanted, which saves another piece of land.

After soybeans are interplanted, the rhizobia of soybeans can also provide nitrogen fertilizer to corn.

Intercropping means planting different types of crops on the same piece of land according to regular row and plant spacing.

Intercropping crops can be planted in a combination of height and shortness. For example, in addition to soybeans, corn can also be interplanted with peppers.

Because peppers are exposed to intense direct sunlight in the summer, they are very susceptible to sunburn. If they are interplanted with corn, the tall branches and leaves of corn can help block most of the sunlight.

There are many combinations of intercropping, and the characteristics of some plants can also promote growth and prevent pests and diseases.

Planting in spring determines whether the two will have enough to eat in the next year.

Zhao Yeqing's goal is not only to eat well, but also to eat well.

She thought very carefully about this plan.

"The insect most easily infected with corn is corn borer. If you interplant with garlic, the smell of garlic is more pungent and can suppress corn borer and aphids."

Mu Xi nodded, "You can also interplant pumpkins. The flowers of the pumpkins will attract the black egg wasp, the natural enemy of the corn borer, and can also prevent the corn borer."

She didn't know this, so she quickly wrote it down in her notebook.

There are also some crops that are incompatible with each other, such as pumpkins and potatoes. This does not mean that the two cannot be eaten together, but they will infect each other with pests when planted together.

Intercropping sounds complicated, but the underlying logic is actually very simple.

The collocation follows: one round, one pointed, one high, one short, one up and one down. In the general direction, there is basically no mistake.

One round and one pointed refers to leaves. Round leaves are mostly leguminous plants, and pointed leaves are mostly grass plants. Crops from these two families complement each other.

One tall and one short is like interplanting corn with peppers, using tall stalks and short plants.

One on top and one on the bottom refers to the fruits. If corn is interplanted with sweet potatoes, the corn fruits will be on top and the sweet potato fruits will be on the bottom. There will be no competition for pollination.

Sweet potatoes need to be planted, but she doesn't plan to plant them with corn.

Sweet potatoes have thick skin, so even if they are not planted with corn, the yield will not be affected.

She prefers corn mixed with soybeans or mixed with garlic.

Raising cattle, sheep, and chickens at home requires corn for feed, so it is best to choose crops that can ensure corn yields.

"Then let's plant more corn, garlic and soybeans together." Mu Xi analyzed the situation at home,

"Combining the two plots of land in the second row into one, we can grow corn on both of them. There are so many mouths in the house, and we won't finish them all if we don't have enough food."

There is nothing wrong with what he said.

But she still wants to grow something, "I want to grow peanuts."

It can be eaten fried, sprinkled with salt as a snack, added to cooking, or made into peanut butter. It is delicious.

Zhao Yeqing sat on the bench in front of the table, poking at the paper with the pen in his hand.

Mu Xi stood behind her, reached for the pen, bent his hands over her shoulders, revised it on the paper, and rested his chin on the top of her head.

"You can divide the land on the left side of the second row into two halves. One half will be combined with the corn field into one large one, and the other half will be used to grow peanuts."

The yield of peanuts is not high. Even if one acre of land is planted with peanuts, there are not many peanuts. Oil extraction will definitely not work. The yield cannot keep up, and there is not enough land.

The two of them only use it for occasional food, and half a piece of land is enough for them to plant next year.

"Okay, then it's decided."

Garlic is planted inside just to prevent corn diseases and insect pests. Corn is mainly used, followed by soybeans, and garlic is supplemented.

After deciding how to plant it, the two of them quickly went to bed after washing up.

If you don't count this, you still don't realize it. When you count the days, time is really tight.

The steps for rice and glutinous rice are the most complicated. First, the seeds must be dried, and the seeds must be dried for two or three days, and it must be sunny.

The two got up early and took out all the rice seeds. Fortunately, it was a sunny day today. Although the sun was not too hot, it was enough to dry the rice seeds sown in spring.

The rice seeds needed to be turned over and dried, so Zhao Yeqing took out the wooden rake and said, "Looking at the weather, if there is such good sunshine tomorrow, I guess it can be dried in two days."

She used a wooden rake to flatten the rice seeds, and turned them over once when the sun was shining at noon, again in the afternoon, and again in the evening when the sun was shining, about three times a day.

Mu Xi went out with a hoe, shovel and rake, and dug out the fish ponds and rice fields first.

After two days of drying, Zhao Yeqing grabbed a handful of rice seeds and felt a slight warmth in the seeds. This should be considered to be almost dry.

After drying the seeds, you still have to select seeds. When I was in Meishan, I planted rice and accumulated some experience.

This time she planned to use clean water to select seeds, soaking rice and glutinous rice seeds in the water, and discarding the seeds that floated.

Soak the selected seeds in lime water. This is also written in the original owner's notes. It should be able to sterilize the seeds.

The medicinal effect of lime is simple and crude. The seeds soaked in lime water must be fished out and soaked in clean water.

After soaking for half an hour, take them out, put them into lime water, and repeat the disinfection and rinsing operations twice before the seeds are completely processed.

Pour everything into a basin, seal it with plastic wrap, and leave it outside to continue drying for three days.

Mu Xi did not dig out the fish pond first, but dug out the rice field first.

After the seeds have been dried in the past two days, the rice seeds must be put into the rice fields for seedlings before they can be transplanted.

It took about a month to raise the seedlings. Zhao Yeqing was very worried that the temperature would continue to rise this year and he had to clear the land quickly to raise the seedlings.

Both types of rice need to be cultivated, and the two planned fields are not small. After all, these are not ready-made fields. Weeding must be done first, and then the soil must be plowed deeply and watered.

It is equivalent to clearing wasteland for farming, and the amount of work is indeed not small.

Mu Xi determined the scope and was tidying up the first rice field, having already removed the weeds on it.

With this heavy snowfall this year, there are very few weeds left on the meadow, so it’s not too troublesome to deal with them.

It means plowing deeply and then leveling the land, which is the most troublesome step.

The two worked together for two days to finish the half-acre of land. Deep plowing was already time-consuming and laborious, and leveling the land was even more troublesome. The land that had been trampled by animals had to be bulldozed again.

In the end, it couldn't be done, so Zhao Yeqing suggested getting some water in. Later, he found that soaking in water was easier to handle, so he decided to build a fish pond first instead of leveling it.

Once the fish pond is finished and the water is released, then the paddy field can be leveled to get twice the result with half the effort.

Digging a fish pond is not that difficult. You just need to dig a deeper space. It doesn't matter if the bottom is flat or not, and whether there is grass or not.

On the afternoon of the third day, the fish pond was dug. Zhao Yeqing went to collect the rice seeds that had been drying for three days. Mu Xi carried a hoe and hatchet to chop bamboo to divert water.