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

After inspecting the wheat and rapeseed fields, Grandpa Ji and his wife went to the terraced fields on the slope by the ditch to check on their potato and sweet potato fields. Since they had only been planted for a little over a month, they didn't know how many potatoes and sweet potatoes had grown.

Grandpa Ji bent down to turn over the potato vines and remove the excess tendrils.

Through the potato vines, Ji Yongling observed that the current planting method is still flatbed planting, which involves planting potatoes in flat fields.

Of course, this method was the most common cultivation method used by ordinary people for hundreds of years after potatoes and sweet potatoes came into existence. Even modern wheat and soybeans still use this planting method, which has the advantages of being easy to cultivate, irrigate, fertilize, manage pests and diseases, and harvest in a concentrated manner.

However, for potatoes, this planting method has disadvantages such as dense canopy between rows, poor ventilation, low soil light exposure area, soil compaction, and high incidence of pests and diseases.

No wonder the "potato eggs" that Yang distributed to everyone were the size of a baby's fist, and they treasured them so much. It turns out that this was the result of low production and low quality.

Ji Yongling was preoccupied with other things, but her hands kept turning over the potato vines.

Grandpa Ji had already gone to the sweet potato field. While turning over the sweet potato vines, he said, "Oh dear, I'm afraid this year's sweet potatoes won't yield many."

Ji Yongling couldn't determine the yield of sweet potatoes on this slope, but she trusted the experience of old farmers like Grandpa Ji.

However, she is currently powerless. Although she has a batch of potatoes in her storage warehouse, they are all modernly bred potato seeds, which can be used for two consecutive years, but not for the third year. As for sweet potatoes, she has no storage warehouse for them due to storage conditions.

It seems that if we want to increase the yield of potatoes and sweet potatoes, we can only start by changing the planting methods and fertilizers. This is the simplest and easiest way, but it won't work this year, so we'll have to wait until next year.

After a busy day, the grandfather and grandson had just finished eating some vegetable porridge when Ji Mantun and his son arrived.

Grandpa Ji was about to say that he probably wouldn't need to help today, but he closed his mouth again and looked at Ji Yongling.

Ji Yongling stood up and said to Ji Mantun, "Second Uncle, you've come at the right time. My father and the others went to my aunt's house to collect medicinal herbs today, but the herbs in the kiln are almost full. I was just thinking about how to transport some herbs to the county. Now that's good, you and my brother can make the trip."

Ji Mantun chuckled sheepishly, "Girl, just let us know if you need anything. The three of us are here to help out."

"Alright, I'll trouble you, Second Uncle, to take my two older brothers to move the medicinal herbs from the kiln onto the cart, and we'll haul them to the county together."

Ji Yongbai asked, "How about I go home and get another car? We have a lot of people, so if we get two cars, we can make one less trip."

Ji Yongling thought for a moment and said, "That works too."

The group got busy, and Grandpa Ji and Madam Yang also came to help load the truck.

Ji Yonghua didn't see Hu Xirong and her children, so he asked Ji Yongling, "Where are Fourth Aunt and Yongzhou? Did they go to do laundry?"

Ji Yongling chuckled when she recalled how Hu Xirong had finished her meal and strode out like a proud rooster, so she replied, "Fourth Aunt, off to start a fight."

Chi Yung-hua looked completely bewildered.

As soon as Hu Xirong stepped out of the courtyard, another thin girl, about fourteen or fifteen years old, walked in.

"Sister Yuting—" Ji Yongling looked at the woman in front of her who was not even as tall as herself and whose face was a little pale. She was a little surprised. She wanted to ask her how she got here, but she swallowed the words back.

Madam Yang walked over: "Yuting, you're here? Have you eaten?"

Ji Yuting nodded shyly and said, "Second Aunt, I'll eat. You called me over today, is there... is there something you need?"

Yang turned to look at Ji Yongling and said, "There is something. Your sister Yongling has taken on some needlework in the county, and your aunt and I asked you to come over and take some back to do."

When Ji Yongling heard Yang say this, he understood and said, "Yes, that's right, I want you to take some scraps of cloth back to make a medicine pouch."

Ji Yuting rubbed her rough fingers together and looked at Ji Yongling: "Really? I'm afraid my needlework isn't very good."

Yang smiled and said, "It can be done. I saw the clothes you mended for the deaf grandmother last year. The stitches were very neat."

As Ji Yongling walked towards the apple tree, he said, "Sister Yuting, come here. Try making one first and let me see. If it works, you can take some back and make more. If not, it's okay."

Ji Yuting looked at Yang Shi, nodded, and followed her. After listening to Ji Yongling's instructions, she picked up a piece of cloth and began to sew.

Looking at Ji Yuting's profile as she focused on her work, Ji Yongling noticed that her hair was rather sparse and her nails were deformed. She hesitated for a moment, but quickly joked that it was just her occupational hazard from the future acting up again.

Ji Yongling walked to the side and asked Yang in a low voice, "Grandma, didn't our family and my uncle's family in Wali have a fight?"

Yang sat at the kitchen door picking through vegetable leaves, sighed and said, "It's been two years, so let's just forget about it. After all, your uncle from Wali once lent us grain as a life-saving measure when your father and his family were young. Although your sister Yuting's father was stingy and took over our land, he's been dead for two years now, so what's the point of arguing about it?"

Although Ji Yongling's family lived in a cave dwelling, it was located on a plateau, so it was dug on flat land near a ditch. The so-called "low-lying area" was located on the edge of a narrow hill, where the terrain was uneven and there was little flat land suitable for cultivation, but there were many low-lying areas, so there was an abundance of grains such as potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Ji Yongling recalled watching a documentary about exorbitant bride prices. One segment mentioned that young men from low-lying areas often find it difficult to marry because these areas are considered to have poor terrain and economic conditions. This makes it hard for them to find wives and requires exorbitant bride prices to attract women to marry into their communities. Of course, there are also many cases of marriage fraud involving theft and extortion of bride prices.

Ji Yuting's family lived in the valley. Although her family and Old Master Ji's family both had the surname Ji, they were not very closely related by blood. Ji Yongling, the original owner of the body, had some memory of the dispute over the land back then.

At that time, Grandpa Ji was grateful to Grandpa Ji Yuting for lending him grain to save his life. Later, when someone in the village was selling land, although it was only two mu of land near the ditch, it was still on the plateau, so he went to find Grandpa Ji Yuting immediately.

Grandpa Ji Yuting also wanted to return to the plateau, so he bought it.

Later, when Ji Yuting's father was farming, he would often cross the boundary and dig into Ji Yongling's land. Old Master Ji mentioned it several times, and Ji Yuting's grandfather also scolded his son before Ji Yuting's father finally retreated to his own land.

However, Ji Yuting's father later took over again, and the two brothers, Ji Manchuan and Ji Yuting, even got into a fight with him, which caused the two families to drift apart.

Later, Ji Yuting's father fell ill. It was said that his face and body were yellow, his belly was big, and he couldn't eat. The family spent all their money on his treatment, and they even sold the two acres of land to Old Master Ji, but he still died.

In Ji Yongling's view, Ji Yuting's father probably had cirrhosis of the liver, which is a difficult disease to treat even in modern times with the help of modern medical measures, let alone in ancient times.