Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

After planting their own beans, Grandpa Ji and Ji Manchuan went to help Ji Mancang's family plant their beans, and Ji Manqing also went to help Ji Mantun's family.

Ji Yongsong's holiday was over. He and his mother left some bean seeds for Grandpa Ji and then returned to the county. Actually, Grandpa Ji would have helped with the planting even without Ji Mancang's instructions. The most painful thing for a farmer is watching the land lie fallow, with nothing being planted.

So from the time the wheat was harvested until the soybeans were planted, the men of the Ji family were exhausted. Whether it was Grandpa Ji, Ji Manchuan, or Ji Manqing, their hands and feet were all ulcerated, with deep cracks filled with yellow soil.

But there's nothing that can be done about it. That's how farmers are these days. They're used to hardship, and as long as there's a harvest, they don't feel bitter.

Ji Yongling hasn't been helping in the fields these past few days, but she hasn't been idle either, because she's been making fertilizer.

In the days before chemical fertilizers, farmers had to grow as much grain as possible, which greatly depleted the soil's fertility. A while ago, the crops in the fields were nearing harvest, and there was no time to fertilize. However, after planting beans, it was the perfect time to top-dress the corn, so Ji Yongling thought of slightly improving the fertilizer at home.

Nowadays, farmyard manure mainly consists of human and animal excrement, plus ash from stove holes and pot bottoms, which is mixed into the soil, piled up on the ground, and left to ferment naturally. Although it is pollution-free, its fertility is very limited.

Because every household needs to fertilize, cow dung, dog excrement, and sheep dung in the village are precious and scarce resources. After all, "without the stench of manure, there is no fragrance of grains."

When the village children went to play in the ditch, they had to be quick-witted and sharp-handed, picking up any stray droppings or excrement they saw and taking them home.

Ji Yongling remembers a song lyric that used to be online: "I get up early to collect manure, but when I get home, my woman is nowhere to be found." At the time, she joked with her roommate that she had never experienced the joy of collecting manure and that she would go to Henan to experience the happiness of collecting manure someday.

Little did she know that her words would become a self-fulfilling prophecy; now she spends her days collecting manure, but she has never experienced the joy described in the song.

Of all the excrement, her favorite to collect was "sheep dung beans," which were round, not very smelly, and looked like Maltesers from later generations. But now she didn't want to collect excrement anymore; she wanted to make the most of it, like the villagers in later generations often did, composting her own fertilizer to produce organic fertilizer.

Although it may only be a small change, she believed that composting, as verified by later scientific studies, would be more effective than manure.

She remembered her grandparents saying that corn and rice require more nitrogen, so nitrogen fertilizer and compound fertilizer should be the main fertilizers used when applying top dressing. Fruit trees and beans require less nitrogen, so compound fertilizer should be the main fertilizer, with appropriate additions of potassium fertilizer and trace element fertilizer.

Once she had a clear plan, she began working in the earthen pit outside the yard.

Composting materials can be mainly divided into two categories: dry materials, which primarily provide the carbon source, and fresh materials, which primarily provide the nitrogen source. The so-called carbon-nitrogen ratio of compost is actually adjusted to a suitable proportion by adding materials with different carbon and nitrogen contents.

She first brought several baskets of wheat husks, chopped straw, and leaves from the threshing floor, and then swept some sawdust from the woodworking kiln—all excellent sources of carbon. She layered these dry materials in the earthen mound next to the manure pit, carefully smoothing each layer to ensure even distribution. Then, she shoveled some manure from the pigsty and chicken coop—essential sources of nitrogen for composting.

She carefully spread the fresh feces onto the dry material, gently stirring it with a shovel after each layer to ensure even mixing.

Watching these different materials stack up like Tetris blocks, Ji Yongling paid special attention to the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. She knew that if the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio was too high, the compost would decompose very slowly, while if it was too low, it would lead to excessive nitrogen loss. Therefore, she repeatedly adjusted the materials based on their carbon-to-nitrogen content, striving to achieve the optimal carbon-to-nitrogen ratio.

This time, she made compost for corn, which is high in nitrogen, so she appropriately increased the proportion of chicken and pig manure. When she makes compost for beans, which requires less nitrogen, she will increase the proportion of materials containing phosphorus and potassium.

When Hu Xirong and Jia Ronghua came out of the courtyard after finishing applying the ointment, they saw Ji Yongling busy shoveling manure everywhere, and they really couldn't understand the fun of playing with manure piles.

Hu Xirong pinched her nose and said, "Oh dear, you're just a girl, not a dung collector, what are you doing soaking in this dung heap? It stinks."

Jia Ronghua, holding Ji Yong'an, said with disdain, "This kid, I really don't know what's gotten into him. Of all the things he could do, he has to play with the dung heap."

Hearing their teasing, Ji Yongling wasn't annoyed. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and explained with a smile, "Mom, Aunt, I'm not joking. I'm making compost."

"Compost?" Hu Xirong and Jia Ronghua exchanged a glance, both showing puzzled expressions.

Hu Xirong asked in confusion, "Is piling up human and animal excrement with wheat husks and straw really compost? If we add some wheat husks and straw to the manure piles that are taken to the fields, wouldn't that be the same as what you're doing?"

Ji Yongling really didn't know how to explain, so he could only say, "Auntie, reach out and try it. It's very hot inside. It can kill some things (bacteria, viruses) in human and animal excrement that we can't see. It's definitely less likely to cause crops to get sick than the way we used to apply fertilizer."

Hu Xirong stretched her hand out in mid-air, then pulled it back, realizing, "Oh—I know! Piling them together like this is like piling up crops that haven't been dried properly; it burns inside. But piling wet crops together will burn them, while piling up excrement and dung together forces out all the nutrients, right?"

Ji Yongling really wanted to say, "Excellent!"

Jia Ronghua nodded and said, "Now that you mention it, it seems that way. Sometimes, when children don't know any better, they might pour human or animal excrement directly onto the crops, which can burn them. That's why the elders have always told us that when fertilizing, we should keep a little distance from the crops, not too close."

Hu Xirong exclaimed excitedly, "Oh my, I see that Ling'er, you've added a lot of wheat husks and straw to this cesspool. Does that mean that the same amount of manure will make a bigger and more abundant compost pile?"

Ji Yongling nodded and smiled, "Yes, Mother, Aunt. You are both right. Just wait and see the results. My fertilizer is definitely more fertile than the soil fertilizer we are using now."

At this moment, Shuanzhu's wife, Hou Manfang, came over with a thread in her hand. Seeing Ji Yongling and the others talking about the manure pile, she asked, "Auntie, what are you and Yongling doing?"

Hu Xirong quickly and excitedly repeated what Ji Yongling had just said, and finally said: "We people who have been farming for more than 20 years only know how to bury our heads in the soil, we are all inflexible. Look how clever that kid is, he knows how to turn the manure that can be used for one acre of land into fertilizer that can be used for three or four acres of land."