1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 63 Helping out
In the early morning of the next day, vegetables were still in short supply in the market.

Chen Jiazhi also raised the price of choy sum from 2.5 yuan per catty to 2.7 yuan per catty.

A price that made Yi Dinggan envious.

During this period, Chinese cabbage also set the highest wholesale price in domestic history.

Just 80 kilograms of Chinese cabbage were sold for more than 200 yuan, which is more than half a month's salary for an ordinary worker.

Even though the price was so high, many people still couldn't get the goods. One morning, people frequently came to Chen Jiazhi to ask for Chinese cabbage.

He could only decline them all.

We don’t have the supply capacity now, and it’s better to be greedy than to be greedy. For now, it’s enough to keep these two customers.

Chen Jiazhi also felt that the monk's attitude was changing. When he took the dishes in the morning, he no longer watched him pack the dishes.

Instead, they just gave the money and left.

When Chen Jiazhi was delivering the goods, he saw that no one was guarding his car and specifically reminded him to be careful of the vegetables being stolen.

Vegetable prices have been high recently and thieves are rampant.

Curly Cabbage also delivers 80 kilograms of water spinach every day. It delivers to more than one factory and can rotate the water spinach delivery. The profit is relatively low, but in the current market environment, it is good enough to complete the delivery task.

Chen Jiazhi did not target him again. He bought vegetables for two consecutive days, and the price of water spinach remained at 2.5 yuan per catty.

Selling high-priced vegetables is really addictive.

On the morning of the 2nd, Chen Jiazhi brought back another 743 yuan, and on the 3rd he also earned 745 yuan.

300 kilograms of vegetables per day is approaching the daily income record of more than 800 kilograms of vegetables in May: 770 yuan.

At the same time, the water spinach sown from May 5.12th to May 5.14th has entered the high-yield period, and those sown on May 5.16th will soon come out.

In addition, loofah and bitter melon can be picked again after a period of recovery.

I also saved more than 1300 yuan.

In the past two days, Chen Jiazhi also asked about the price of second-hand fire tricycles. The cheaper ones are more than 3000 yuan, and the newer ones are about 6000 yuan.

Vegetable prices have also remained high.

Chen Jiazhi planned to make another effort and buy the fire tricycle as soon as possible.

As for the driver's license~
The inspection is not strict now, not to mention that it is mainly driven at night, so you can only use it first while taking the car or truck driver's license test.

After making up his mind, Chen Jiazhi found Li Mingkun after returning from selling vegetables that morning.

the weather is getting hotter.

Vegetable farmers go out to work earlier and earlier. Li Mingkun has few vegetables, so he doesn't take a nap after coming back from selling them. He goes straight to dig in the fields.

Chen Jiazhi took out a cigarette, shouted, and lit it for him.

"Old man, I'll have to trouble you to bring some food tomorrow morning."

Li Mingkun asked in surprise: "Do you have more food?"

Chen Jiazhi nodded and said: "There are still two batches of water spinach that have not been touched. Now there is still half of this batch, which is estimated to be more than 2,000 kilograms.

Loofah and bitter melon also came out, about 70 to 80 kilograms a day.

The vegetable prices are good now, so it’s better to sell them early and make money.

Besides, I also want to buy a second-hand tricycle."

"You're going to buy a car now!" Li Mingkun took a deep puff of his cigarette, extremely shocked, but thinking about the current vegetable prices and the amount of food Chen Jiazhi serves, he became even more silent.

"There's no other way. There's still a lot of food and land to grow back there, so buying a car is a must."

Chen Jiazhi has been very low-key in the past two days, and Yi Dinggan has also been criticized by his second sister and has stopped showing off.

The main reason is that most people in the entire vegetable market are in a bad state.

Only the two of them always have a full cart of vegetables every day. It’s okay to show off once or twice, but if you show off too much, it will attract people’s attention.

Also busy.

The closer we get to summer, the faster the leafy vegetables grow, and there is also the most work to do in the fields.

What's more, Chen Jiazhi still has 10 acres of land to develop.

Li Mingkun paused for a moment and said, "I can bring it to you, but if there are too many dishes, you can ask Yongfeng."

"Isn't it going to be a few days before Yongfeng has vegetables?"

"It's precisely because we have no vegetables that we need help. Yongfeng and Huang Juan have been in a tight spot lately."

Chen Jiazhi understood.

I paid the rent at the beginning of the month.

Moreover, the prices of agricultural inputs have risen again.

"Okay, I'll go find Yongfeng."

Previously, Liu Minghua was asked to work for a night and was paid 15 yuan per day, which was a very tempting salary.

But now Qi Yongfeng is short of money.

Chen Jiazhi is also not stingy. In his opinion, spending some money is better than always owing favors to others.

Qi Yongfeng and Huang Juan were busy in the loofah field. Chen Jiazhi asked him to help sell the vegetables, and Qi Yongfeng readily agreed.

He hasn't sold vegetables for more than half a month, and the cabbages in the small shed will take a few days to be sold.

Money is really tight these past two days.

The 15 yuan per night salary offered by Chen Jiazhi was not low and solved their urgent needs.

"Brother Zhi, I owe you another favor."

"Haha, it's not like you don't work, this is the income you deserve."

Chen Jiazhi smiled and now he could see clearly that the two seemed to be pollinating.

"Why are you pollinating so early in the morning? Didn't I tell you earlier that ribbed loofahs need to be pollinated around 5 p.m.?"

"The weather has been so bad lately that I've been busy watering the seedlings in the afternoon. I couldn't see clearly when I came to pollinate, so I thought I'd come early in the morning to pollinate."

Chen Jiazhi frowned and looked at the loofahs in Qi Yongfeng's field. There were far fewer than in his field, and the quality was not good enough.

"That won't work. We can't leave it overnight."

"Why? I see that many of their bitter melons are pollinated every other day."

"The loofah is different." Chen Jiazhi recalled and said slowly:
"For any melon, the pollination success rate is highest on the day it blooms. Bitter melon has an 80% pollination success rate on the second day, and 50% on the third day. However, loofah has a pollination success rate of less than 10% on the second day. No wonder I'm harvesting loofahs again today; yours is still this small."

Let's adjust the pollination schedule today. Pollinate in the afternoon and water the plants at night, otherwise it will all be a waste of effort."

Qi Yongfeng and Huang Juan were both stunned.

Pollinate early every day.

It turns out to be all in vain.

In fact, Qi Yongfeng should have vegetables to sell. After the first crop of water spinach in the small greenhouse, he could actually pick more crops.

But seeing the low price, they quickly harvested again and replanted the choy sum.
This has resulted in a lack of vegetables during the recent high price period.

Looking at Chen Jiazhi's departing back and thinking about other people's dishes, Qi Yongfeng suddenly felt a little depressed.

"Juan, how about I tell Brother Zhi that I can go work for him later? Working for him is better than growing vegetables ourselves."

Think about the income of Ao Dehai and the other man.

Qi Yongfeng thinks this is really feasible.

After thinking about it, Huang Juan slowly nodded: "Then you should go and tell him as soon as possible."

After returning home and having breakfast, Chen Jiazhi prepared to sow the soaked cowpea seeds first. He had prepared a small seedling bed in the small shed over the past two days.

When he went out, Li Xiu also secretly took a small stool to the vegetable field to thin out the seedlings.

It was still early and the sun had not yet risen, so Chen Jiazhi could only leave it to her for the time being.

After the sun came out, Chen Jiazhi planted the cowpea seeds and watered them, then went to send Li Xiu back, who was so angry that she burst into tears.

Chen Jiazhi smiled and said, "We need to harvest loofah and bitter melon this evening. They're all growing well. How about I leave them all to you?"

Only then did Li Xiu smile.

The newly acquired 10 acres of land were temporarily divided by Chen Jiazhi into No. 7 and No. 8, each of which is 5 acres.

Ao Deliang and Lai Guihui have agreed to come and help him, but they are still renting a house and moving, so they will have to wait two days before they can come.

At present, Site No. 7 has just been turned over and exposed to the sun, and quicklime has been sprinkled on it to sterilize and neutralize the acidity of the soil.

Many vegetable farmers do not do this step.

Because the land has to be rented, vegetable farmers can’t wait to plant the next crop immediately after harvesting one.

This results in serious pests and diseases.

The soil also doesn't have time to recover.

In fact, as long as the land is exposed to the sun for a few days, the pest and disease and soil problems will be greatly improved, and the yield and quality of the next crop of leafy vegetables will also be significantly improved.

As the sun rose higher, and before the water in the ditch became boiling hot, the three of them began watering under the scorching sun.

The clothes were soaked with sweat.

Pour water on the seedlings, making them fall to one side. By the afternoon, the seedlings can stand up upright again. When watering is done in the evening, they float to one side again, and stand up again after one night.

The temperature is high and there is moisture, so the cabbage seedlings grow a little taller every night.

The changes visible to the naked eye make you smile while working.

But it can never compare to the joy of harvesting vegetables.

Chen Jiazhi hasn't experienced this kind of joy for a long time.

The Chinese cabbage and water spinach have always been harvested by Ao Dehai and Zhao Yu. Since it affects other people's income, he cannot steal them.

Although the loofah and bitter melon have recovered from the heavy rain, they are once again bearing abundant fruit.

But it was firmly occupied by Li Xiu.

Take on too much.

This time he was not even allowed to touch the deformed melons, of which there were only a few to begin with.

Instead, he was asked to pollinate the loofahs, pinch off the tops and clean up the old leaves in the field to prepare for the next harvest.

There is indeed another good harvest of loofah and bitter melon.

After the bitter melons were fertilized, their yield was even higher than the first batch and their sizes were also larger.

One evening, Chen Jiazhi estimated that he had picked 100 kilograms of loofah and bitter melon.

The water spinach is estimated to be over 300 kilograms, and the total amount of vegetables is estimated to be 500 kilograms. It is relatively easy to carry the goods with two bicycles.

When the neatly arranged loofah, bitter gourd, Chinese cabbage and water spinach are placed together again.

This once again brought a strong impact to vegetable farmers.

Li Mingkun was a little stunned: "How much can this be sold for?"

Guo Mancang smoked a cigarette and said in surprise, "I definitely have a thousand yuan, it just depends on how much more it can be."

Both of them came back early from selling vegetables recently, but they also went to the market and knew how busy the situation was and how outrageous the prices were.

So I know better than others how valuable these dishes are.

In the early morning of June 4, Qi Yongfeng came to the wholesale market again. Although he was not selling his own vegetables, he still felt excited.

As soon as the car stopped, passengers flocked in and it immediately became the most eye-catching person on the street.

Someone shouted to place an order.

Some people squeezed forward to help unload the goods, so that they could protect the vegetables from being touched by others.

Some people waved banknotes, wishing they could stuff them directly into Chen Jiazhi's bag.

The scene was very chaotic for a while.

"Come one by one! Yongfeng, push the car against the wall first! No one else is allowed to touch it!"

Chen Jiazhi ignored the person who wanted to place an order and instead yelled at Qi Yongfeng. He had become familiar with this scene in recent days.

It’s just that there are a lot more new faces today.

It seems that the vegetable vendors who knew he had vegetables a few days ago but didn't get them have come early.

Although he didn't go to the market, Chen Jiazhi guessed that something new had happened.

There may be fewer vegetables from other places available at stalls in major markets, and middlemen are also collectively raising prices.

Then he has to help out too.

(End of this chapter)