9: Chapter 9 Trial Planting

Jiang Lin grew up in Jiangcheng, and in his eighteen years of life, he had never had anything to do with the word "farming".

The money tree on the family balcony was raised by his mom, and he had never even watered it.

When he was in primary school, the school organized a visit to a suburban farm, and the only thing he remembered was that the tractor tires were taller than his entire body.

In junior high school biology class, he learned about plant photosynthesis, memorized that carbon dioxide and water synthesize organic matter in chloroplasts, but that was a knowledge point for exams, which was worlds apart from real farming.

But now, farming had become his only way out to survive longer in the Wasteland World.

Jiang Lin was not a smart person.

But he had an advantage that smart people didn't have.

Stubborn persistence.

He didn't understand electromagnetic induction, so he drew diagrams of Lenz's Law for eight situations on the Wasteland, drawing for a whole afternoon.

He couldn't remember the hyperbolic asymptote formula, so he wrote it five times, ten times on the edge of his draft paper.

Farming was the same.

If he didn't know how, he would learn.

If he couldn't learn it, he would study it repeatedly.

If he still couldn't learn it after studying repeatedly, he would take the questions to the Wasteland and slowly test them out.

The Wasteland lacked everything except time.

That night, Jiang Lin charged his mobile phone, opened the browser, and entered six words in the search bar.

How to farm in the Wasteland?

The search results popped up a bunch of web novel links.

He was stunned for a moment, then realized what question he had just asked, deleted it, and re-entered.

Reclaiming Wasteland to grow food?

The content that popped up this time was much more serious.

Popular science articles from agricultural technology promotion stations, open course videos from agricultural universities, and planting experience sharing videos taken by some UP hosts.

He clicked in to read them one by one, and took screenshots to save the useful ones.

After reading for more than two hours, he roughly figured out a framework.

Farming, when all is said and done, came down to a few things.

Seeds, soil, water, sunlight, fertilizer, pesticides.

There was soil on the Wasteland.

Dark red, compacted soil with unknown pH but a high probability of being acidic.

There was water on the Wasteland.

Acid rain, pH four to five, usable after treatment.

There was sunlight on the Wasteland.

Gray and hazy, weakened a lot by suspended particles, but at least it could cast a shadow.

Fertilizer, not temporarily available, but he could think of a way himself.

Seeds, needed to be brought over from the Real World.

He drew a table on the draft paper.

The horizontal axis represented problems that could be solved, and the vertical axis represented things that needed to be brought from the Real World.

Problems that could be solved.

Acid rain could be neutralized with baking soda, soil could be plowed and improved, and shade-tolerant crops could be chosen for insufficient light.

Things needed to be brought: seeds, farm tools, fertilizer, and more agricultural knowledge.

Seeds were the most critical.

What seeds to bring determined what he could grow on the Wasteland.

Jiang Lin started searching again.

This time he searched for crops with the shortest growth cycle.

The search results surprised him a bit.

He originally thought that growing food would take at least half a year, but in fact, the growth cycle of many vegetables was much shorter than he thought.

Bok choy, about thirty to fifty days from sowing to harvest.

Spinach, thirty to forty days.

Lettuce, about forty days.

Cherry radishes, thirty days.

...

If he just wanted to see harvests quickly, these leafy greens and root vegetables were the most suitable.

But if he wanted to survive in the long run, eating only vegetables wouldn't work.

He needed staple food, something that could fill his stomach.

He continued to search.

Potatoes, about sixty to ninety days from sowing to harvest.

Sweet potatoes, about one hundred days.

Soybean, eighty to one hundred days.

...

The growth cycle of these crops was much longer than leafy greens, but their yield was high, and they could be eaten as meals.

Especially potatoes, which were tolerant to barrenness and drought, had low soil requirements, and had a large yield.

How many famines in Western history had been pulled through thanks to potatoes.

Jiang Lin drew a pentagram next to the word "potatoes".

Then came the Soybean.

Soybean was not only food, but could also fix nitrogen.

He had learned in junior high school biology class that the roots of legume plants had rhizobia, which could convert nitrogen in the air into nitrogen fertilizer that plants could absorb.

Planting a season of Soybean could improve the soil fertility a lot.

He wrote two words next to the Soybean—nourishing the land.

Finally, he added a Pumpkin.

Pumpkins were resistant to storage, had a high yield, and could harvest a lot in one season. Rural areas in the north relied entirely on them in winter.

Although the growth cycle was a bit longer, about a hundred days, it was worth it.

Three crops: potatoes as staple food, Soybean for nourishing the land and as a source of protein, and Pumpkin as vegetable reserves.

He wrote these three names at the very top of the draft paper and circled them with a red pen.

Taking advantage of the weekend, Jiang Lin went out early in the morning.

Riding a bicycle, he went to the nearest largest agricultural supplies market.

The agricultural supplies market was in the suburbs, and he had to walk a distance after taking the bus to the terminal station.

He rode for nearly forty minutes, and his butt was aching from the bicycle seat.

The market was much larger than he had imagined, with rows of single-story houses. Bags of chemical fertilizer, rolls of plastic film, and various models of farm tools were piled up at the entrances.

The people who came to buy things were middle-aged and elderly people in their forties and fifties, wearing camouflage uniforms or old cotton-padded jackets, riding tricycles or motorcycles.

Jiang Lin stood among them wearing his school uniform, like a penguin that had walked into the wrong movie set.

He walked around the market and finally stopped at the doorway of a seed-selling shop.

The shop owner was an older sister in her fifties with a round face, rough skin, and unwashable mud embedded in the gaps of her fingers.

She was weighing cabbage seeds for an old man with a small pole balance, and the scale weight was swaying.

Jiang Lin stood aside and waited. After the old man paid and left, he went up.

"Auntie, I want to buy some seeds."

The older sister glanced at him.

School uniform, school bag, student haircut.

"You, buying seeds?"

"Doing experiments for school biology class." He had thought of his excuse in advance.

The older sister gave an "oh" and didn't ask further.

"What seeds do you want?"

"Potato seed potatoes, Soybean, Pumpkin."

The older sister turned around and took down a few packs of seeds from the shelf behind.

Pumpkin and Soybean were wrapped in paper, with variety names and planting instructions printed on them.

The potato seed potatoes were packed in mesh bags, about the size of a fist, with bud eyes on the surface, stained with dried mud.

Jiang Lin bought 5 jin of potato seed potatoes, two packs of Soybean seeds, and two packs of Pumpkin seeds.

Under the recommendation of the older sister, he also bought a small hand hoe, a small shovel, a roll of plastic mulch, and a bag of compound fertilizer.

The compound fertilizer was picked for him by the older sister, with a nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium ratio of 15-15-15, universal type, suitable for beginners.

He stuffed the things into his school bag, got on his bike, and went home.

The school bag was bulging, shaking back and forth as he rode.

The cold wind of December poured into his collar, freezing him to shrink his neck, but his chest was warm.

His school bag contained the hope of surviving on the Wasteland.

Returning home, he put the seeds and farm tools under the bed.

Then he turned on his mobile phone and started watching agricultural planting videos.

The keywords he searched for were balcony potato planting, household vegetable growing, and beginner farming.

Many videos popped up, including popular science from agricultural experts, sharing from urban balcony planting enthusiasts, and recording videos of some young people returning to their hometowns.

He watched them one by one, taking notes while watching.

After cutting potatoes into pieces, the cut surface should be dipped in plant ash to prevent rot.

If there was no plant ash, stove ash would do.

If there really was none, air-drying was also fine.

Potatoes liked loose soil, and compacted land needed to be deeply plowed first.

The base fertilizer should be sufficient; potatoes were a crop that consumed a lot of fertilizer.

Hilling was required after seedlings emerged.

Pile soil toward the roots so that the tubers could expand in a dark environment.

Exposure to light would turn them green, and turning green meant they were poisonous and inedible.

Soybean did not need seedling cultivation before planting; they were directly dibbled.

Row spacing forty, plant spacing fifteen, put three or four seeds in each hole.

Soybean and Pumpkin were not picky about land, but they were afraid of water accumulation.

Soybean roots had rhizobia, which could fix nitrogen, and the land where Soybean were planted would become fertile.

Pumpkin could be directly sown.

He wrote down these knowledge points one by one in his notebook, filling three full pages.

After watching the video, he felt he understood.

Then he decided to give it a try.

He looked around and found three empty flower pots from the corner of the balcony.

One had previously grown peppers; later the peppers died, but the soil was still there.

One had grown scallions, which hadn't been harvested clean, and a few withered scallion roots were still sticking out of the soil.

Another was ceramic, bought who knows when, left empty all along, with a thick layer of dust fallen on it.

He washed the three flower pots and moved them into the bedroom, lining them up on the windowsill.

Then he took out the bag of compound fertilizer and the small shovel from under the bed, and opened the seed packages of Pumpkin and Soybean.

The first flower pot was for planting potatoes.

He picked the largest one from the potato seed potatoes, and following what the video taught, found the bud eyes and cut it in half.

Since there was no plant ash on the cut surface, he left it on the windowsill to dry.

After drying for about half an hour, the cut surface became dry.

He dug a hole in the flower pot, about ten centimeters deep, put half a potato in, with the bud eyes facing up, covered it with soil, and watered it thoroughly.

He pasted a sticky note on the edge of the flower pot and wrote the word "potatoes" with a ballpoint pen.

The second flower pot was for planting Soybean.

He pulled out the original scallion roots in the flower pot, turned over the soil once, picked out a few dry and hard clumps of soil, and crushed them.

The Soybean seeds were small, round, light yellow, with a dark hilum on the seed coat, like a closed eye.

Following what the video taught, he poked four small holes on the soil surface with his finger, about two centimeters deep, with a palm-width spacing.

He put two seeds in each hole, covered them with soil, pressed them gently, and watered thoroughly.

He pasted a sticky note and wrote "Soybean".

The third flower pot was for planting Pumpkin.

It was even simpler than planting Soybean.

The three flower pots lined up in a row on the windowsill. The potato pot was the largest, with a flat soil surface where nothing could be seen.

The Soybean pot was next, and the positions of the four small holes were slightly depressed.

The Pumpkin pot was the smallest, with fine and damp topsoil, like a piece of land that had just experienced a light rain.

Next was to wait, waiting for them to sprout and grow up on their own.

All he could do was loosen the soil, water enough, and apply enough fertilizer.

The rest was left to time.

He watered the three flower pots every morning and evening.

He didn't dare put too much compound fertilizer; according to the instructions on the packaging bag, he dissolved a small spoon in one liter of water, and poured a little base fertilizer into each of the three pots.

On the third day, the Soybean pot showed some movement.

A tiny bulge swelled up on the soil surface, as if something was pushing up from below.

The Soybean had sprouted.

It didn't drill out from the position of the hilum; the seed itself expanded and pushed the soil open.

He suppressed the impulse to dig open the soil to take a look, and only watered it.

On the morning of the fourth day.

The two cotyledons of the Soybean completely pushed out of the soil.

The cotyledons were tender green, oval, fleshy, and had a layer of extremely fine fluff on the surface.

Sandwiched between the two cotyledons was a tiny, tiny bud point, which was the prototype of the true leaf.

Two days later, movement also appeared in the Pumpkin pot.

A hook-shaped bud pushed against the seed coat and arched out of the soil surface.

The potatoes showed no movement.

He began to doubt whether he had broken the bud eyes when cutting them, or if the temperature in winter was too low to sprout, or if watering too much had soaked the potatoes rotten.

Searching online for how long potatoes take to sprout, the answer was seven to fifteen days.

So he continued to wait.

On the morning of the eighth day, he squatted in front of the windowsill as usual to look at the three flower pots.

The true leaves of the Soybean had grown to the size of a fingernail, and the fluff on the leaves could be seen clearly in the sunlight.

The Pumpkin had unfolded plump heart-shaped cotyledons, dark green and thick, and its stem was even sturdier and tougher than the Soybean's.

In the potato pot, the soil surface was flat, still with nothing.

He stared at the potato pot for a long time, picked up the small shovel, and gently pushed aside a small pinch of soil on the edge of the pot.

He wanted to see how the potato piece was doing.

Less than two centimeters of soil was pushed aside, and he stopped.

Under the soil surface, a light green, chubby bud was growing outwards horizontally.

Not upwards, but walking horizontally for a short distance, then turning a corner, and starting to push upwards.

It wasn't rotten.

It was alive.

He covered the soil back, pressed it gently, and poured a little water.

On the ninth day, the potato sprouted.

It didn't come out from directly above the seed potato, but pushed out diagonally from the side.

The bud was thicker than those of the Soybean and Pumpkin, the light green stem carried tiny scale-like leaves, and the top was a compact small leaf ball.

The moment it pushed open the soil surface, it left a thin crack on the soil surface, and then poked its head out from the crack.

Three crops, three different sprouting methods, three different growth rhythms.

Soybean were the fastest, Pumpkin second, and potatoes the slowest.

But the potato's bud was the thickest and sturdiest, like a person who had saved up strength for a long time before finally speaking.