harleyscars Chapter 553 Building a Greenhouse
Chapter 553 Building a Greenhouse
The next morning, when Xu Xiaoyan opened her eyes, she saw the familiar outline of her lamp. For a moment, she felt a little dazed, as if she had never left Xuan County.
But she quickly came to her senses, sat up, stretched, and felt the soft cracking of her joints. She had a lot to do today, so she didn't have time to stay in bed.
After washing up and having breakfast, she went to stand in the courtyard on the first floor.
The morning sun slanted across the courtyard wall, and the gray-brown soil shimmered with white light in the morning glow.
She walked to the center of the courtyard, and on a whim, the first thing that appeared was the forty-three bags of humus, neatly stacked at the base of the courtyard wall.
Then there were the bamboos that had been cut down in the sinkhole. They varied in thickness, some as long as eleven or twelve meters and others as short as three or four meters, with a bluish sheen on their surface.
Next came the white plastic mulch film, rolled into a cylindrical shape and wrapped with a transparent protective film on the outside, which felt slippery to the touch.
Finally, there was a gleaming watermelon knife, several pairs of thick rubber gloves, an axe, an entrenching tool, a bundle of thin hemp rope, and some other miscellaneous tools.
Xu Xiaoyan put on rubber gloves, stretched her shoulders, and began today's big project: building a large shed.
She walked around the yard and selected the southernmost area, about 120 square meters, as the location for building the greenhouse.
He squatted down and used a hoe to loosen the topsoil, breaking up large clods of soil and removing the pebbles and weed roots, making the ground flat and soft.
Next, we dealt with the forty-three bags of humus. We untied the bags and poured the dark brown humus onto the ground, instantly filling the air with the moist, fertile scent of soil.
She used a shovel to mix the humus and the original yellow clay in a 1:2 ratio, turning it over two or three times to ensure the two types of soil were fully combined.
Then, using an entrenching tool, the mixed soil was spread out and leveled, covering an area of about 100 square meters with a thickness of about 20 centimeters.
After mixing the soil, she began to build the bamboo frame, prioritizing the thickest and longest bamboo, and cutting it into sections of about four meters with an axe.
Then, insert the bamboo evenly into the soil along the four sides of the greenhouse area, inserting each bamboo about 20 centimeters deep, keeping it upright.
Insert a bamboo stick about fifty or sixty centimeters apart, then cut it into thinner pieces with a watermelon knife and tie them to the top of the bamboo stick with hemp rope.
Connect the adjacent bamboo poles one by one to form an arched, curved frame.
The binding process is very time-consuming. She has to wrap hemp rope around each intersection of bamboo stalks several times and tie a knot to ensure that it is firmly bound and does not loosen.
Fortunately, she had built a similar small shed before when she was in the sinkhole. Although her technique was not very skillful, she was proficient and never sloppy when it was necessary to tighten it.
It took nearly two hours to finally set up the bamboo frames for all four greenhouses, which stood steadily in the yard.
After the bamboo frame was erected, the next step was to cover it with plastic film. She unrolled the white plastic film and carefully spread, stretched, and covered the bamboo frame with it.
Xu Yan stood on a stool and first fixed one end of the film to one end of the arch frame, then pressed it down with hemp rope and bamboo strips.
Then slowly pull the entire membrane from one end to the other, adjusting the tightness as you pull to ensure there are no wrinkles or places that are too tight.
After the membrane was completely covered, she used hemp rope to secure it at each intersection of the bamboo frame to prevent it from being blown away by the wind.
The edges of the membrane hung down around the edges, so she used a hoe to dig shallow trenches and bury the edges of the membrane in the soil, pressing them down firmly.
Finally, she left a small door at each end of the greenhouse and made simple door curtains using bamboo strips and leftover plastic film.
She also hung several thin bamboo poles on the bamboo frame inside the greenhouse, crisscrossing them to form neat rows of trellises.
It will come in handy for planting climbing vegetables like cucumbers and green beans in the future.
By the time everything was finished, the sun was almost setting.
Xu Xiaoyan straightened up, took off her rubber gloves, wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, and looked at the bamboo frame greenhouse that she had worked on all day to build, pondering what to plant.
I selected a few varieties that are suitable for planting in the current season: loofah, watermelon, leafy greens, green beans, and the box of carefully collected grape seeds.
She went into the greenhouse, squatted on the loose, fertile mixed soil, and dug rows of shallow trenches in the ground with a small shovel.
Since loofahs and green beans need trellises to climb, she sowed seeds along the base of the bamboo frames on both sides of the greenhouse, burying a seed every 20 centimeters, covering it with a thin layer of soil and gently patting it down.
Watermelon seeds prefer warmth and are susceptible to waterlogging, so she specifically chose the area in the greenhouse with the longest sunshine and made several mounds of soil there.
Plant two watermelon seeds on each mound, and the vines will spread outwards along the mounds.
The easiest way is to scatter the vegetable seeds densely on another leveled bed, cover them with a thin layer of fine soil, and then lightly spray them with water using a spray bottle.
She planted the grape seeds separately in a corner of the greenhouse, where the temperature was most stable, which was suitable for the delicate seedlings to grow slowly.
After planting, she used a spray bottle to moisten the soil in all four greenhouses.
Water droplets sprinkled finely on the brown soil, making a soft rustling sound, and the air was filled with the unique fresh scent of soil that had been soaked in water.
After she finished planting, she took off her muddy gloves, took out her phone and checked the time. The number on the screen jumped to 8 p.m.
She yawned, packed up her tools, closed the greenhouse curtain, and turned to go back inside.
After a quick wash, I lay down on that familiar big bed and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning, Xu Xiaoyan was awakened by the sunlight streaming in through the window.
She put on her clothes, went downstairs, pushed open the back door and walked into the yard. Her gaze fell on the open space next to the greenhouse, and she picked up a handful of soil and kneaded it.
The soil on this plot of land had not been improved with humus, so it wasn't particularly good. But then she suddenly remembered something.
Potatoes and sweet potatoes don't seem to have high requirements for soil. They can grow well without very fertile soil, as long as it is loose and well-aerated.
She had heard from elderly farmers in Xuan County that potatoes and sweet potatoes are very hardy.
It is not picky about soil or fertilizer, and can survive with just a little water. It is one of the easiest crops to manage.
She went back inside, took out some potatoes and sweet potatoes from her storage space, placed them in the corner of the living room, and let them sprout naturally. Once the sprouts appeared, she would cut them into pieces and plant them in the soil.
After finishing with the seed potatoes, she returned to the yard, walked around the greenhouses, and focused her gaze on the four greenhouses.
The newly sown seeds are in the early stages of germination and do not require much fertilizer.
But once they grow true leaves and start growing rapidly, they definitely won't survive without enough nutrients, so she has to prepare the fertilizer in advance to avoid being caught off guard later.