Through the troubled times and famine, I just want to farm peacefully

Lin Yinan stood outside the county government office and watched Su Kunliang and the others leave.

From afar, we saw Lin Shuo and Lin Yisong driving a mule cart out of the city.

Lin Yinan was stunned for a moment, then asked, "Where are you going, Uncle?"

Lin Shuo also saw her and smiled instantly.

"Anan, let's go check out the cotton in the field."

"Has it bloomed?" Lin Yinan asked.

"No, there are quite a few buds, all the size of a thumb. It will probably take some time before they bloom."

You don’t know until you grow cotton yourself. Only after Lin Shuo grew it himself did he understand why fine cotton cloth is so expensive.

It takes one month for cotton to grow from buds to flowers.

"I'll take a look with you."

Lin Yinan was nimble and light, and he jumped onto the mule cart with one light jump.

"Ma'am, wait for me!"

Qianwu hurried out of the county government office with two straw hats in her hands.

The mule cart had already run for some distance, and she ran very fast. When she got close to the mule cart, Lin Yinan reached out and pulled her onto the mule cart.

In the cotton field, under the caress of the breeze, the cotton plants are neatly arranged and swaying in the wind.

The leaves of cotton are dark green in color, with slightly serrated edges and a layer of fluff on them. Each branch is hung with flower buds of various sizes.

Before Lin Yinan had time to take a closer look, he heard Qian Wu's exclamation.

"Oh my! There are so many bugs here!"

Upon closer inspection, I found several large green caterpillars on the leaves, which had eaten many of them into pieces.

Lin Yisong brought a small bucket and skillfully searched every leaf on the cotton tree, throwing the caught insects into the bucket and taking them back to feed the chickens.

"Recently, there have been a lot more bugs, and I can't catch them all every day."

As Lin Shuo spoke, he brought a few bundles of dried mugwort and lit them in several places on the field.

Suddenly, the whole cotton field was filled with smoke.

"Does this method work?"

"We should try it first. Doctor Lin said that if it doesn't work, we can try another method."

"Is there any other way?" Lin Yinan was not well versed in farming.

"Lime, try fumigating it for two days and see if it works. If it doesn't work, sprinkle some lime on it."

Spreading lime is the best way. Lime is corrosive to a certain extent. If it is not controlled properly, it can easily burn the leaves and stems of cotton.

Lin Shuo also told Lin Yinan about several deworming methods provided by Dr. Lin.

"Dad, there seem to be fewer insects than yesterday." Lin Yisong comes here every day, and after catching a row, he can clearly feel that the wormwood fumigation has some effect.

Lin Shuo: "Doctor Lin said it might be useful, but it's also possible that once the bugs get used to it, they will come back again."

Lin Yinan was not optimistic. After careful observation, she found that there were still many insect eggs on the leaves. After catching all the insects, the next batch of insects in the eggs would hatch.

Hearing her say this, Lin Shuo frowned, "It seems that we still have to take a two-pronged approach."

Without any delay, Lin Yisong and Qian Wu drove the mule cart back to the city to get quicklime.

In the cornfield not far away, many villagers were harvesting corn.

The weather in the south is very hot, so after harvesting the spring corn, you can start sowing autumn corn.

Someone came out from the cornfield and saw Lin Yinan and Lin Shuo catching insects in the cotton field.

They all shouted at her, "Anan, when can we harvest the potatoes we planted?"

"Look, the potato leaves have all curled up these past two days. I'm really looking forward to a good potato harvest!"

Lin Yinan smiled and replied, "I don't know, I haven't seen it yet."

"Anan, go and take a look. I estimate it will be harvested after a while." Lin Shuo said.

Lin Yinan plucked the big fat worms off the cotton leaves and threw them into the bucket. Then he came out of the field, put down the bucket, picked up the hoe on the ground and went to the potato field.

Seeing her walk towards the potato field, people who were picking corn came out of the cornfield and followed her.

"City Lord, are you going to dig potatoes?"

"Well, dig one up and see if it's ripe."

Lin Yinan and the others came to this potato field where the plants were growing well. The leaves of the potato plants had begun to turn from green to yellow, and they looked wilted in the sun, but not yet dry. The stems and leaves underneath were a little yellow.

It is indeed as Lin Shuo said, we can start digging it after some time.

She picked a potato vine with mostly yellow stems and leaves. The soil on the ground was neither dry nor wet. She pulled out the vine and then dug deep and hard with a hoe near the root of the vine.

Everyone was surprised and delighted to see the golden potatoes suddenly emerging from the soil.

"Come out! Come out!"

Lin Yinan dug up the soil and found that there were nine potatoes on this potato vine, almost the size of a fist.

"Anan, this is potato!" An old man from Linjia Village couldn't help but exclaim.

“Yes, that’s a potato.”

Lin Yinan picked up the potatoes and showed them to everyone.

It was the first time the villagers had seen something like this and they held it carefully in their hands, turning it over and over again.

"Oh my god, one vine can produce so many fruits!"

"City Lord, can we dig everything up?" someone asked.

Lin Yinan: "Wait a few more days until most of the potato stems and leaves turn yellow and wither. Only then can the potatoes be stored for a long time."

Everyone was very happy and kept rubbing the potatoes back and forth with their hands.

"Okay, then let's harvest the corn first, and then the potatoes."

"I'll ask the canteen to prepare a potato feast for everyone!" Lin Yinan said proudly.

Everyone immediately clapped and cheered, "City Lord, we'll wait."

After chatting for a while, everyone went back to work one after another. They were all looking forward to harvesting the corn and digging potatoes.

After waiting for more than three months, they really wanted to know whether the yield per mu of potatoes would be as high as the city lord said.

Lin Yinan lifted up her skirt and returned to the cotton field with the potatoes in her pocket.

Lin Shuo sat on the ridge of the field to rest. He could not hear the sounds over there clearly, but he was very curious about the potatoes in Lin Yinan's pocket.

“Is this ready to be dug?”

Lin Yinan handed the potatoes to him, and Lin Shuo took them and looked at them carefully one by one.

After a long while, he said, "It looks like we don't need to water them anymore. We can harvest them after drying them for another ten days or so."

Lin Yinan couldn't help but give him a thumbs up.

"Uncle is indeed a good farmer!"

After they chatted for a while, Qian Wu and Lin Yisong came over in a mule cart pulling a bag of lime.

Lin Shuo divided the lime into two pieces. He and Lin Yisong each carried half a bag and scattered them in the cotton field.

Qian Wu was eager to try, but Lin Shuo was afraid that she might not spread the liquid evenly, so he asked her and Lin Yinan to sit on the side and rest.

Lin Yinan was rummaging through the cotton leaves that had been sprinkled with lime, and saw the insects on the leaves that were stained with lime rolling around in pain and then falling to the ground.

It seems that this method is effective, but I don’t know if it is effective against insect eggs.

The father and son quickly finished spreading the lime.

On the way back, Lin Yinan gave the nine freshly dug potatoes to Lin Shuo, asking him to take them back to cook for Old Lady Zhao, and even told him how to cook them.