50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 109 Farming on the City Wall

While the leaders of other ghost markets were cursing Brother Long at the foot of the imperial city, Brother Long was still struggling to move food out.

He has to pay the profits every month. This place doesn't belong to him alone. Now that the money is gone, he has to recover the funds quickly, otherwise he will not be able to pay the money at the end of the month.

A few days later, Sun Zhiwei saw how effective his method was and naturally took it to heart. He planned to later identify the leaders of the other ghost markets and deal with them again if necessary.

On the 24th, the higher authorities issued a call for "low targets, vegetables instead".

What does it mean? It means that when food is insufficient, fruits and vegetables can be used to replace grain, and non-staple food can be used to replace staple food.

For example: using sweet potatoes, potatoes, radishes, etc. to replace grains as staple foods. These side dishes have a significant feature, which is that they have high yields.

At the same time, it also requires all units to be self-reliant and work hard to increase production, not only to increase grain production, but also to increase vegetable production.

At the same time, we must do everything possible to increase the production of various food substitutes to ensure that each person collects 30 kilograms of dried vegetables.

This "substitute food" is actually not a thing, but refers to all edible foods that are not normal food.

There are three main categories:

The first category is the harvest residues of crops.

For example, rice bran, wheat straw, wheat bran, corn husks, corn stalks, etc. Wheat straw powder can be used to make steamed buns, wheat bran can be used to make steamed buns, and corn husks and stalks can be crushed to make porridge.

Note that the corn husk is not the skin on the outside of the corn kernels, but the skin on the outside of the corn cob and filaments.

You say this thing cannot be eaten, but animals eat it every day, but it doesn't taste good. It feels like chewing wax, and the residue gets stuck in the throat. It is difficult to digest in the stomach and is difficult to defecate.

Regardless of whether it is nutritious or not, it is true that it can fill the stomach. People will still eat it when they are really hungry.

The second category is wild vegetables and game.

Let’s not talk about wild game. There is no wild game in the suburbs, unless you go to the deep mountains, but that is not a place ordinary people can go.

As for wild vegetables, it is easier in the mountains because there is a lot of space and few people, so you can pick a lot of them. But there are too many people around the city, so the vegetables in the suburbs are quickly picked up.

The newspapers encouraged everyone to engage in summer and autumn harvests, which meant that everyone should go out to find food in the wild during the lean period before harvest.

In many places, the entire village went out to pull the net to collect the weeds. Not a single blade of grass was left behind, and the weed seeds were all picked up by the children walking at the back.

The most popular tree is the elm. The whole body of the elm tree is a treasure. It can produce elm seeds in spring, its leaves can be used to make steamed corn bread in summer, and its bark can be ground into powder to make steamed corn bread in autumn.

Even slightly toxic plants such as wild amaranth, locust leaves, sand date, and wild wolfberry can be eaten, but you must know how to deal with the toxicity.

The third category is chlorella and algae.

There is still a fourth type of food, which usually refers to synthetic food.

Such as "artificial meat" synthesized from beans, "leaf protein" extracted from plants, etc.

This type of "food substitute" tastes good and is nutritious, but it's not affordable for most people. Most people have never seen this kind of high-end product.

Let’s not talk about “substitute food” for now. The tasks assigned by the superiors need to be completed first. 30 kilograms of dried vegetables per person is not easy to get.

Sun Zhiwei and his colleagues were all working according to their assigned tasks, and Principal Wang was so worried that his hair was starting to fall out. The kindergarten's supply hadn't stopped, but the variety and quantity had begun to decrease.

For example, there was fruit, of course, but you had to leave it to fate, and take what you got. For example, in July, the children in the garden ate apples for a month because that was all they had.

For example, the usual ample supply of rice and flour has now been partially replaced with millet, reducing the total amount by about 10%. The canteen's head chef, Chef Shi, has begun to demonstrate his talent, minimizing food waste while also making the food look and taste good.

The situation was tense, so the several farmlands in the park were working at full capacity, but this still could not meet the needs of the four or five hundred people in the park.

Faced with this dilemma, Sun Zhiwei promptly approached Director Wang and proposed his own solution.

"Director, we can apply to farm on top of the old city wall."

"Can we farm on top of the city wall? Aren't they all bricks?"

"Hey, most of the outer bricks have been removed, leaving only the rammed earth in the middle."

"If we spread half a foot of river mud on top, we can grow vegetables. Watering is also easy. We can just put up a wheel and draw water directly from the moat."

"you sure?"

"I'm sure some people have done this in the past, but it was done covertly and on a small scale."

"Where else are there long sections of city walls now?"

"There's still a lot of city wall left in the Drum Tower area, and it's so close. We can apply to reclaim a section of such a wide wall, which would give us at least several dozen acres of land, and the output would be enough for the garden's own use."

"Okay, let's do this. I'll apply for the permit, and you'll organize the manpower and equipment. Once the permit is approved, we'll send someone in."

"Director, I can be responsible for getting the tools, but I can't organize the manpower. These are all done by the older women, and I don't have the influence to lead them."

"Pfft, now you know women hold up half the sky, right? Okay, go talk to Auntie from the logistics department about the tools, and I'll organize the manpower."

"Make sure to complete the mission."

So far, many parts of the old city wall of the capital have not been demolished. The workload is so huge that we can only organize people to demolish part of it when necessary.

The remaining old city wall is about forty to fifty kilometers long and 15 meters wide, which is equivalent to a thousand acres of fertile farmland.

Beihai Kindergarten Director Wang submitted an application, which immediately gave the city government a large amount of available agricultural land nearby. It was only right that they would allocate a section of land to Beihai Kindergarten in return.

The approval document came down quickly, and one-third of the teaching staff in the park were allocated, and then they took turns to go up the city wall.

The first batch of reclamation work was assigned to all the male teachers in the garden and some colleagues from the security department.

Sun Zhiwei led the team and they soon reached the old city wall on the north side. Once on the wall, looking left and right, you could see the capital inside and outside. The view was exceptionally broad and made people feel much more relaxed.

First, they found the section of the city wall designated for them. Some people used bricks to build a boundary and divide the land, while others went to the outer wall to build the revolving wheel.

The higher-ups allocated them a 500-meter city wall, which is about or acres of land.

Vegetables have a cycle of two to three months, potatoes have a cycle of about 100 days, and sweet potatoes have a cycle of about 150 days.

Without using chemical fertilizers and only using organic fertilizer, one acre of land can produce 400 kilograms of potatoes, 1000 kilograms of vegetables, 1000 kilograms of radishes, and 2000 kilograms of sweet potatoes in one cycle.

With reasonable planning and meticulous cultivation, this piece of land can basically guarantee food and clothing for the entire park. What's more, the park has supplies, and this is just an auxiliary supply.

As long as this land is cultivated well, the park will be better off in the next few years.

(End of this chapter)