Lady of the Lord From the East

Because the Pope was injured, the church members had to stay in Fort Sardinson to wait for him to recover, but the people in the territory were as busy as ever.

After the wheat harvest, a batch of oats was planted in a hurry. Now the canals have been repaired in the manor. The river without an official name looks small, but the water volume is very abundant. There is no drying up, the river flows along the canals throughout the manor. With these waterways extending in all directions, everyone no longer needs to go all the way to fetch water, watering the land is also diligent, and the time is saved by most of the time, which is saved They can also devote their time to other jobs, to serve the Count and earn some living expenses.

The canal was repaired before winter, and I knew it was easy to use this spring. The people who always used the castle as a weather vane naturally built the canal early. At that time, they didn't have the money to ask someone to help repair the canal. They organized manpower to dig soil and build canals during the slack season, and have been building them one after another for half a year. Now in Sardinson, wherever there is a large farmland, you can see winding canals.

It is also because of these canals that there was not much rain in Sardinson this year. After the summer, there was only a heavy rain at the end of the wheat harvest. After that, it was sunny until July. The crops in the fields were not affected at all, and they were still lush and growing. .

In July, the weather became more and more hot, and the vegetables in the vegetable field began to be produced on a large scale.

The castle has its own vegetable garden. Originally, only one piece was planted for her own consumption inside the castle, but after Wei Wei came, she planted a wave of various vegetables in the vegetable garden in the spring of last year. I have to plant it again this year. Except for some valuable crops such as corn and sweet potatoes that cannot be exposed for the time being, most of the vegetables are still planted in the vegetable garden.

As a result, the original one-acre vegetable garden was expanded to ten acres, not only growing various vegetables, but also a variety of fruits.

Out of the back door of the castle, at a glance at the vegetable garden surrounded by wooden fences, all kinds of vegetables are lush and tender, green onions and garlic seedlings cover the fields, green peppers, red tomatoes and peppers are like lanterns hanging on the branches. The green green is really gratifying. The cucumber vines that have grown on the other side and the blooming loofah vines next door climb up the wooden frame. The large and small cucumbers hang under the frame, waiting for people to pick them. On the ground, Half-large pumpkins with green skins and winter melons smaller than a fist are looming on the leaves. It is still a while before they are picked, but we can already see the sight of a bumper harvest in the future.

The other half of the vegetable garden, the fruit trees that were transplanted or planted this year are still just small saplings, and it is still early before they can bloom and bear fruit, but there is also a vague outline of the future orchard. , The strawberries with white flowers, red fruits and green leaves are very eye-catching, and they are also the favorite of the birds. In order to keep this batch of newly ripe strawberries, they sent slaves to guard them to drive away the birds. Not much left.

Seeing a strawberry, Wei Wei couldn't help but think of the strawberry potted plant she kept on the balcony when she was still in modern times. It was a very small one, but she liked the result. After stealing it, only a small part of it was left pitifully hanging there, telling his grievances.

This piece of strawberry was transplanted from the castle. After growing up last year, in order to allow them to multiply more, Wei Wei let these strawberry seedlings grow by themselves. Now they have expanded from nearly 1,000 to more than 10,000. It will continue to double and grow. After all, this plant has a very strong reproductive capacity. If you take care of it, it will continue to give birth to stolons. As long as the bottom of the stolons is buried in the soil, it will automatically take root and grow. If you don’t cut it and the mother plant The connected stems maintain the nutrient supply, and the new seedlings can even continue to sprout stolons, growing all the way like spider plants and growing more plants.

This year, Wei Wei felt that the plant was enough, so she didn't want to let it continue to expand. Although the new stolons would continue to grow into plants, they would not continue to be planted in the ground. Miaoqiu, and then notified in the castle that if anyone wants to plant, they can bring some back to try.

There were strawberries in Europe during this period, but there were only wild varieties, and the shape and taste were naturally inferior to the modern varieties that had been cultivated for hundreds of years. The number of strawberries that grew out of the strawberry field last year was not small, and several owners simply ate them. It's not finished, except for some dried fruit jams, and some for the castle, so that everyone can taste the deliciousness of strawberries.

This kind of fruit is not difficult to take care of. The fruit produced is delicious and good-looking, and it is very rare. Only Sardinson has it. No matter how you think about it, it can be sold for a good price. When eating it, someone carefully put the seeds on it I collected them all, thinking of taking them home for the family to plant one of them.

At that time, Wei Wei was not yet the hostess of the castle. Although others respected her, they were not afraid. In addition, neither Felix nor she had expressly prohibited it from doing so, so many people were prepared to do it.

The knights have their own territory, and the servants also have their own families. Every household has more or less cultivated land. There is also a little temptation.

But in the end, the number of strawberries that each of them received was small. At first, they ate the strawberries when they didn't know that the little dots on them were seeds. Naturally, there were not many seeds collected in the end, and after these people went home and tried them, they quickly became It was found that although the seeds can germinate smoothly, after they grow into seedlings

They do not know that although strawberry seeds can also be planted, when the ripe fruit is peeled and dried in the sun, the seeds are peeled off by themselves. When spring comes, another batch of new seedlings will be produced, but this kind of seedlings are prone to mutation. , may become better or worse, it is difficult to maintain the excellent traits of the parent.

Moreover, the seedlings grown from seeds are more fragile than those produced from stolons, and grow slowly and are difficult to support. If the seeds are not planted by experienced strawberries, the seeds will basically die after germination and transplanting, even if they grow up. As a result, the variation of good and bad fruit is also completely unstable, and it is not suitable for large-scale cultivation at all.

After raising a large number of small seedlings and only a few surviving, it is impossible for them to develop seeds on a large scale in a short period of time.

Therefore, as soon as Wei Wei said that he would send strawberry seedlings for free, people in the castle immediately lined up to receive them. Those seedlings who had grown into a batch of small seedlings did not even open the gate of the castle, they were wrapped up, and there were even people who wanted to spend the money. Money to buy seeds.

They felt that before the seeds did not grow well, they would not be able to plant them. Now Wei Wei is willing to teach them when he sends seedlings. Naturally, they have to seize the opportunity.

Wei Wei of course refused. She seriously warned these people about the pros and cons of strawberry seeds, so that these newbies should not waste time on this, but work hard to cultivate them with stolons.

Only then did everyone know that the seeds were always bad not only because they were newbies, but also because the seeds themselves had problems, so they had to give up.

Fortunately, Wei Wei gave Miao generously. As Felix’s capable subordinates, the knights would give 100 plants to 100 plants. Ordinary soldiers and servants would give relatively less, but four There are also fifty trees.

Later, the news came out of the castle, and some serfs and free people came to ask for it one after another. Wei Wei would also give it here, but it was not as good as the people in the castle. The people who came to ask outside the castle were all from a family of ten trees. .

These new seedlings are brought back and raised for a year and a half, and new stolons will naturally be born again, that is, if the stolons are to be raised, the result rate will be affected to some extent.

The growth cycle of strawberries is three years, and the second year has the most fruit. This year, some strawberries planted by Wei Wei are in the second year, but because they have been raising stolons, they consume a lot of nutrients, and too many fruits will affect the quality. She deliberately had people cut off most of the flowers, leaving only those with thick stems, to control the number of fruits, so although the strawberries were small, they were big, regular, and red and delicious.

Dolores has been obsessed with strawberries since she ate them. This year, when she saw that the strawberries were ripe, she took Wei Wei out to pick them together. In fact, the little girl can pick as much as she can, but she just enjoys the fun of doing it herself.

Last year, the strawberry fields were taken care of by the gardener's children. This year, the two eldest boys of his family went to the paper mill to help. The remaining children became servants because of the lack of people in the castle. She studied with other servants, and the youngest girl was assigned to Caroline's side. If she behaved well, she would be her personal maid in the future.

Wei Wei was not sure if it was because of her and Dolores. After all, last year she took these children to play in the garden for half a year. Later, Dolores also slowly played with a few girls. Since With the master's favor, the people below are naturally willing to give them some convenience, otherwise, it is not easy to enter the castle but the servant is not easy.

This time, Wei Wei also pulled Felix out of the strawberry picking. She felt that he had been busy with too many things recently, and he still wanted to relax occasionally.

I chose to enter the vegetable garden in the early morning before the sun came out and the weather was not hot. Felix was also fascinated by the variety of fruits and vegetables there. He felt like he entered Wei Wei's experimental field last year. plant, but look at the fruit, there are more or less signs.

Dolores came running for strawberries. She squatted in the field with a basket and picked them one by one. There were also slaves picking strawberries in the distance. The output of this large strawberry field was at least 2,000 catties. Although they are matured in batches, one crop can be cooked every two or three days, but the weight at a time is also several hundred kilograms. If they do not hurry up to finish harvesting, they will end up cheapening the birds that come to steal it every day.

Wei Wei didn't go to pick strawberries, she went to the tomatoes and peppers. The tomatoes were big and brightly colored. They were also the target of birds. However, the slaves looked at them very carefully. If there are red ones, they will be picked immediately. During the day, people will be kept in the fields to guard the birds around the clock, so they will not be harmed much by then.

When Wei Wei came, the ripe tomatoes hadn't been picked yet. She reached out to pick them, and Felix helped her pick them up with a basket. He picked up one in his hand and wiped it on his clothes, biting it down, his mouth full of sweetness and sourness.

He knew that it would take more than half a month for these tomatoes to grow to full maturity. During this period, no pesticides were used. Before, the insecticide water with low toxicity was used, and the toxicity disappeared in about seven days, so he picked them directly. It's okay to eat.

"This batch of tomatoes is growing well, and there are many results. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to sell it?"

Wei Wei bent down and picked one that was close to the ground, and handed it back without looking back: "Collect the seeds, and make tomato paste with the remaining pulp."

Felix had eaten dishes made of tomato sauce last year, and liked the taste very much. If Wei Wei wanted to make all of them into tomato sauce, he completely agreed, and he knew that it would definitely be sold.

She went on to say, "Let's see if anyone is willing to help us grow tomatoes? We provide seeds and technical guidance, and they are responsible for getting out of the way."

Felix was a little surprised: "You want to plant this for someone else? Why? There is still a lot of vacancy in the land of Sardinson and Slot."

Sardinson County is a standard earldom, and the actual arable land only accounts for half of the county. This year, the people who open up wasteland will increase the arable land a lot, but there is still a lot of spare land.

And not to mention Slaughter, the farmland over there has long been abandoned, and there are about a thousand people in a large county. Although it has been a little bustling recently because of the past merchants, some free people who have moved away have even moved back. , but on the whole, the land is still vast and sparsely populated, and a small amount of tidying can clear up a large field.

"Not only tomatoes, I also plan to promote other vegetables. These things are not grain, but the yield per mu is large and the income is higher than that of grain. If the price remains high, I am afraid that people in Sardinson will only be willing to do anything in the future. What is valuable to grow, I refuse to grow food properly."

This is also what she has been worried about after seeing everyone running to get the strawberry seedlings. It is not only businessmen who are chasing profits, but also ordinary people. With sufficient food, it is natural for them to think about making their lives better. However, in today’s Sardinson, the residents can support themselves even if they don’t plant the land. Now the fields are still the crops of the past. When there are more choices in the future, whether the fields are planted with wheat or something else, which is more natural. Choose whichever is profitable.

Wei Wei didn't plan to take the cultivation path of the crooked people. This is not the future with developed logistics. The land in the territory should mainly be used to grow food. Other vegetables and fruits can be grown, but they cannot occupy too much space.

But she also wants to promote these fruits and vegetables. Since she can't do it herself, she will find a partner.

She expressed her concerns, and Felix understood it. He asked about the planting conditions of tomatoes, and several suitable places came up in his mind.

"I wrote to ask them what they meant. Don't just look for one family. Look for a few more, and plant some everywhere. This can prevent any natural and man-made disasters from reducing crop yields."

I think some people will be interested in this cooperation. As for the conditions of cooperation, of course, we need to talk about it slowly.

Wei Wei listened to his agreement, smiled, and changed the subject again.

"The corn, potatoes and peanuts are about to be collected at the villa, and Melk's rice is almost at the same time." She stood up straight and looked back at the castle behind her: "I will take time to visit the villa these two days. , the people in the castle, be careful not to let them follow."

Felix nodded: "Don't worry, they won't let them run around."

She is not worried about the Pope and the two bishops. She is worried about the flow of their subordinates. Those knights and mercenaries are all very skilled. Even if someone looks at one of them, it is easy to get into trouble, especially one who is in a hurry to send news. Bishop Roberto is here, and the castle seems calm on the surface these days, but a lot of things have happened in private, but it's just not mentioned publicly.

Wei Wei and Felix agreed, and went to change the medicine for Raymond again. After explaining to the servant, he packed up the next day and went to the villa with only Penny.

Penny has become more and more stable this year, and she is not as talkative as before. She is Wei Wei's personal maid. Like Qin, she has encountered many people who are courteous to them these days, but the two are unmarried. The maids are not stupid. They know what the people of the Holy See are doing to please them.

Wei Wei also brought people along when she saw her growing up. The situation on the villa was a secret. Even the surrounding guards were not allowed to enter. They were only guarded outside. Only a dozen slaves were busy all day, and they were not allowed to enter or leave at ordinary times.

Of course, these guards didn't really let them stand outside all day foolishly. Felix built a barracks in a field next to the villa, and let some soldiers stationed here, and from time to time they went into the forest to practice. They usually only need to When patrolling, just add the villa to the patrol range.

Wei Wei's arrival did not attract much attention from the soldiers. After all, she would come here from time to time, and everyone was used to it.

The slaves in the villa have been waiting for a long time. They have been taking care of the fields here. Now it is natural to know that the plants in these fields are not owned by Prady. They can't go out usually, and food is regularly sent to them. Open fire, there is no entertainment other than work, and when I have free time, I will talk about what those crops are.

For example, corn, soybeans, etc. grow on the ground. It is good to say that they are edible at first sight. However, those potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts and taro grow in the ground. Only green plants can be seen on the ground. However, as soon as the flowers finished blooming and nothing grew, the slaves were worried that they had not taken good care of these plants, for fear that the master would blame them after he came, and they were trembling every day, but Wei Wei passed by and looked at them once and told them The fruits of those crops grow in the ground, and they can't be seen on the surface, so they let out a sigh of relief, and more seriously follow Wei Wei's instructions.

Now it's time to harvest, but the slaves dare not take it without the master's order, and they are worried that they will be scolded or even beaten if they miss the time and make mistakes. Naturally, they are looking forward to Wei Wei coming sooner every day.

Wei Wei came and took a look in the field, and then the slave started to harvest corn, potatoes and peanuts.

Penny collected these with Wei Wei last year, so Wei Wei gave Penny the responsibility for breaking the corn. She squatted in the potato and peanut fields, and taught them how to dig with a **** so as not to damage the soil. s things.

But the nests of potatoes and peanuts were dug up, and the slaves watching from the side couldn't help but exclaimed: "A lot!"

They didn't expect that there were so many fruits under the plants that didn't look very tall. The peanuts didn't look very conspicuous, but the potatoes looked like they could weigh several kilograms in a nest, and they accidentally dug up their skins. Exposing the yellow potatoes inside, food-sensitive slaves knew at a glance that this stuff was filling.

This realization only flashed in his mind, and the next moment the slave accused Wei Wei of the potato he had dug up.

The countess must be very angry when she just said to be careful and digs it up.

Of course Wei Wei won't be angry because of this trivial matter: "It's inevitable, you just need to pay attention next time."

After that, the slaves were really careful, but it was the first time to collect potatoes and peanuts. It was inevitable that some digging would occur. Fortunately, after waiting for the number, this situation basically disappeared. It's not too many, such potatoes are not easy to store, so Wei Wei simply let them cook them.

Everyone in the villa ate mashed potatoes that night, except that her and Penny's were sautéed in butter with milk salt and a little pepper to make mashed potatoes, while the slaves had just added salt in situ mashed potatoes.

Even so, the taste of potatoes made the slaves feel good about the food. It was delicious and satisfying, and it didn't grind their teeth. It was much better than the brown bread and oatmeal they often ate.

The output of corn, potatoes and peanuts is quite large, but the planting area this year is not large enough. It takes a dozen slaves to harvest all of them in a few days, but there is still the Pope and his party at the castle. Wei Wei is not good. She stayed at the villa for more than two days. She taught the slaves how to harvest, dry, and store, and then she went back to the castle, but because there were only slaves on the villa, no one was watching her. Not at ease, after thinking about it for a while, Penny stayed behind to watch the slave do things.

"Madam, don't worry, I'll take good care of them." Penny wasn't unhappy about her staying behind. She was happy to share the work for Wei Wei. After the promise, she sent Wei Wei away.

When Wei Wei returned to the castle, she also brought some herbs. She originally wanted to bring some corn, potatoes and peanuts for Felix and Dolores to try, but she thought that there were still a group of outsiders in the castle, and the habit at this time was to eat together , and everyone can come in and out of the kitchen. She was worried that the problem would be seen when she brought it back, so she only brought the medicinal materials collected on the edge of the forest and some medicinal plants that grew in the grounds of the villa.

The Pope's group had different attitudes towards her absence from the castle for the past two days. The Pope thought she was going out to collect herbs to relax, but he thanked her specially when she came back, saying that it was too much trouble for her.

Of course, the Pope was also curious about the herbs she brought back, especially some he had never seen before.

And Bishop Roberto obviously felt that it was a bit strange for her to go out at this time, but on the day she left, he sent someone to watch her carriage leave the castle from the height of the castle, making sure that she did not go anywhere else, and then let go of this doubt.

The author has something to say: Wei Wei: I have to be sneaky in my own territory, exciting =-=