Rural vegetable garden is to use hibiscus trees or bamboo chips as fences to enclose one vegetable field after another. This fence is surrounded by radish and cabbage, and that fence is surrounded by eggplant and pepper. The huge vegetable garden is protected by hibiscus bushes hand in hand, and a bamboo door is used between this piece and that piece to let the owner in and out.
Apart from the tranquility of Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Garden, or the green, fat, red, thin and colorful things written by Li Qingzhao, all a peasant woman can think of is actually not letting cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks go in and spoil crops. Cattle and sheep can be stopped, generally do not rush into the garden without the owner's permission. But chickens and ducks are different. They are naturally naughty and clever, and they like to drill cracks under the fence. You can often see them meet in twos and threes, drilling through sparse branches one by one. Everything outside the fence is in the blink of an eye. Maybe you eat vegetables in the garden, maybe you eat earthworms, maybe loose soil is easier to turn over earthworms. In short, the joy of the period is like children entering the playground.
After a long time, under the fence tree, several passages for chickens, ducks, cats and mice came into being. Only the old dog at home doesn't like those small holes and disdains to interact with chickens and ducks lower than him. As usual, he followed our grandchildren in and out of Chai Fei. Grandma sometimes sighs for these things that are difficult to open the door, but only scolds one or two words. In fact, rural families, poultry and vegetables, fruits, people, livestock and other things coexist in the garden. As a little girl, I can't have scientific exploration of ecological chain, let alone philosophical thinking of three worlds and three customs, and I won't care about harvest like my grandmother. I care about the happiness of me and my friends (all animals and creatures) here. Even, I soon found a lot of ginger growing next to the door made of chickens, ducks, cats and mice. Ginger is commonly known as lotus in my hometown. Actually, it's not like lotus leaf, but like ginger. It is also a rhizome plant, which can grow protruding teeth like eggplant-colored bamboo shoots from the soil. Those protruding teeth will bloom. Picking them up and frying them in a bowl is the best memory of my tongue in the whole childhood menu. They grow very slowly, so every once in a while, I will crouch by the door looking for new lotus flowers like chickens and ducks. Once it is picked, it will happily run to grandma and shout, "grandma, look, I have picked foreign lotus flowers again!" " "
In the morning of spring and summer, I pushed Chai Fei away with my grandmother's little feet, and walked into the garden like a chicken and duckling to find joy. Anyone who has lived in the countryside knows that the leaves and weeds in the garden are covered with clear dew in the morning. They shine like crystals in the early morning sun. Sometimes you can see colorful dew under the refraction of sunlight, like a rainbow. When I was a child, I heard my grandmother tell the story of the ancient seven fairies, but I didn't know where to see some colorful illustrations of western crystal stones. Because there are no more materials to research in the countryside, the jewels on the fairy in the little head and the colorful crystal necklaces formed by tears are probably made of water drops on pepper leaves illuminated by the sun. When can I use magic to pick these dewdrops and make them into beautiful necklaces to hang around my neck? Will the fairy princesses in those books also covet my crystal stone in the morning before I enter the vegetable garden?
Apart from the fantasy that dew forms a beautiful necklace, other joys are more real. Visit the garden every day, and every crop in it is like a good friend and neighbor. I didn't like bitter gourd when I was a child. I've always felt that life without food and clothing is hard enough. Why should I invent a particularly bitter dish? Although I don't like to enjoy it, I also like to play it. Bitter gourd is the most unscrupulous growth. As long as the seeds are sown and taken care of carelessly, many fruits can still be produced. Bitter gourd vines are very thin and are often dragged to dry sheds or lotus fences, so bitter gourd is everywhere on the fences on the branches. Grandma sometimes lets me pick it by myself. Because I don't like it, I lie that bitter gourd hasn't grown up yet, and I often take it back with other dishes. The next time grandma finds that many bitter melons are red and ripe, she can't eat any more, and she doesn't blame me. She also says that red bitter melons will become sweet. If you don't believe me, let's try. Sometimes we really break one on the spot next to the bitter gourd vine, and the grandparents and grandchildren take turns licking the sweetness of red bitter gourd. Now think about it, grandma is really an optimistic and cheerful old man, full of love for me; There was too little sweetness in life at that time. I don't like eggplant either, but I like to go under the eggplant leaves and see which eggplant has grown enough to eat. When there is enough rain, melons and fruits grow too fast. Sometimes if I don't pick it for a long time, the purple gourd with my fist is covered with branches, and everyone is eagerly looking forward to my little hand to visit. If you pick vegetables every day because of the increase in the amount of vegetables used in busy farming, the eggplant tree will only have finger-sized eggplant grandchildren hiding under the dense leaves and growing quietly.
Stir-fried with eggplant, it must be crisp pepper. Almost every household in rural Hunan grows peppers, and people of all ages have experience in planting them. I am no exception. I grew peppers with my grandmother when I was very young. First, in the warm and cold spring, carefully turn the ground over and carefully mix with chicken manure, cow manure or pig manure (it is said that chicken manure is the finest and best) to be considered as good soil. Cut off the good peppers stored last winter with scissors and put the pepper seeds in the dustpan. Then sow: in dry weather, open a thin layer of pre-fertilized land and sow seeds for later use. If it doesn't rain, the sown land should be watered. If the weather is still cold, we will cover all the land with film paper. This is similar to the greenhouse in modern agriculture, except that the four corners are held down by large pieces of soil. In addition to keeping warm and moisturizing, another purpose is to really prevent hens from stealing Chili seeds from being scratched. Pepper seedling takes a long time, and it is inevitable that my grandmother and I will visit in the middle. Sometimes I also act as an active scarecrow to drive away chickens and ducks. When the seedlings grow, we will remove the film. When they grow to the height of my small hands, I will plant them with my grandmother. One or three plants are planted in one place, and the roots are cultivated with fine soil. Peppers are arranged vertically and horizontally, much like the grid in the primary school exercise book. With a small hoe in a small hand, every plant plants hope.
There is almost three months between pepper seeds and growing peppers. Meanwhile, I have a lot of work to do. Such as weeding, such as fertilization, such as watering, such as catching insects. Pepper can't use high-concentration fertilizer, so no matter what fertilizer is used, it's best to dilute it before using it. Pepper irrigated directly with human urine is easy to burn out and its roots die. Moreover, there is a kind of white bug, which especially likes to live under pepper trees, and eating roots is very annoying. So sometimes grandma will teach me to pry open the soil at the root with branches and find out the bugs to be executed. In the season before the pepper tree blooms, catching insects has become a pleasure for me. Hunan people who are not spicy and unhappy show the greatest patience and respect for peppers at this time. When I was a child, no matter how greedy I was, my grandmother would let me wait until I had enough peppers before allowing me to pick them. It is precisely because I personally help to cultivate and cultivate, so when I harvest, I not only have a happy mouth, but also the joy of inner success. Maybe from then on, I understood the truth that no pains, no gains. Pepper is widely used in most dishes on the table. In early summer, we eat tender peppers to make them fresh and delicious. Pepper is widely used in summer, which is helpful for busy farming; In early autumn, it is a garden full of red peppers, and the owner is thinking about how to store it, or whether to sell part of it; At the end of autumn, all the red peppers grow under the owner's eaves, hanging in strings and shining with attractive light.
In the vegetable garden, long beans and green beans grow fastest and have the highest yield. These beans are usually supported by bamboo poles or wooden strips and stand in a row like soldiers. Green vines and white flowers are covered with poles to help them grow upward. Therefore, it is also very interesting to fry beans, and there are only a few dishes; And they grow so fast that it is too late for a farmer to eat the right old tender beans. The older long beans are picked to make dried beans, and the tender ones are used to make sour beans. Pick dried beans before cooking, then wash them, scald them with boiling water, and finally air them neatly on bamboo poles until they are dry. As a child, I like to participate in any of these links very much. In the morning, the little figure first shuttled through the garden to help grandma pick beans; After lunch, accompany grandma to sort out different beans, old and tender, and classify them neatly. When grandma cooks in the afternoon, she lifts a bamboo pole to help grandma set up a shelf to dry beans. Since then, long and soft beans have been hung in the sun in rows, looking like noodles from a flour mill (noodles were rare at that time, and they were bought to entertain guests on holidays), which is also a beautiful sustenance for rural people's autumn and winter cuisine. It's rainy in Hunan, and grandma doesn't have to direct me to go out and come back every day. I will consciously do a good job of collecting and drying every day. The ubiquitous tacit understanding between grandparents and grandchildren, as well as the hard footprints left by little feet everywhere, are all beautiful things in childhood.
In the corner of my garden, there is a big Myrica rubra tree. Myrica rubra is very common in the south, and there are several in my home. Only this Myrica rubra tree is my favorite. First, this tree is closest to the vegetable garden and home. We pass by it almost every day, and we will get familiar with it once or twice. Second, its trees are short and thick, but they are very suitable for children to climb. In fact, the branches of Myrica rubra are extremely fragile and easily broken. At that time, I could climb to the top of the tree regardless of wrestling and danger for the most popular Myrica rubra. Probably because many trees have fruit to eat, children in rural areas can climb trees if they like, and parents generally don't care. The bayberry of that tree is not the best, but it is easy to reach and the output is amazing. If you cook late, you can eat all the other bayberries, and. So whether the child is big or small, we don't care so much about its taste. Sometimes we make a thick straw rope and hang it on the bayberry tree, and everyone takes turns to swing. Because the straw rope is not tied tightly, children often get hurt when they fall. But we still go up and down, or share food, or re-tie the straw rope, and build a happy world that belongs only to friends.
There is also a vegetable garden at home, which is a vegetable garden without fences. These vegetable fields often have a relatively large planting area, often more than half an acre. These places are not very worried about the abuse of a few chickens and ducks, radish land, cabbage land, sweet potato land, cold potato land, peanut land and soybean mung bean land. Radish and cabbage are winter dishes, and nothing else is the main course. The growing period is long, and the planting season is mainly in spring and summer. It is an auxiliary food. The deepest childhood memories are radish vegetable fields and sweet potato fields.
Because radish is a winter vegetable, it must be planted in the late autumn of drought. Not to mention the hard work of ploughing, the fatigue of sowing and fertilizing, and the radish seeds have to be watered if they want to germinate and grow up in late autumn. I only remember that it seldom rains in my hometown at the end of autumn every year, and we still have enough water, but we still have to pick a long well to wash big clothes. Water for watering vegetable fields becomes scarce, but the vegetable fields must not be dried, otherwise the seeds will not grow teeth. Many afternoons in my memory are sultry and dry. Grandma went to water the land with my grandparents and grandchildren. I have worked hard to get water from far away, and I have to get water without watering much land. So I use a small spoon to try not to pour it out of the vegetable field, sprinkle it as much as possible, and give each seed a chance to drink water. In most cases, I don't have to carry water, but when grandma is busy, my little shoulders are indispensable. At that time, all the water tools were thick shoulder poles and heavy wooden barrels, and my tender shoulders were swollen once. As far as I can remember, they like to grow radishes in the fields on a slope, so they climb the steep slope with heavy loads and water on their backs. What a painful memory it was for me when I was young. Every time I am weak, I can only carry half a bucket of water. I often turn around when I walk, and sometimes I spill half a bucket of water. This sad scene often attracts the ridicule of passing brothers and sisters. Why they didn't carry water to water the land, but now they forget. I only remember hating the heavy work of carrying water, and then fantasizing about a water storage ditch next to the vegetable field.
Hard watering did not affect the joy of late harvest, and soon a large area of green radish seedlings grew. First light green, then yellow-green, then green, and finally gratifying dark green. Staring at that piece of green land, there are chickens, ducks, cats, dogs, cattle and sheep waiting for opportunities, and even my little green eyes. I like to eat new radish dishes best. When the vegetable seedlings grow to the palm of your hand, the radish at the root is basically not as big as my little finger, so my grandmother will take me to sow and pick some radish tassels for cooking. Now people in the city only eat radishes, and the vegetable market doesn't sell radishes. The method is also simple, just blanch it with boiling water, then chop it up one inch and fry one or two dried red peppers. Because radish dishes are a little astringent, grandma often puts a little more vegetable oil than other dishes, which is exactly what I want. Generally, neatly cut radish dishes are all red with green, crisp with fresh, I don't know how refreshing. In addition, pickled radish is also a delicious dish. Every family in rural areas has many acid tanks, which are specially used to make pickles, or ginger, or pepper, and the most is pickled radish. Pickled radish is easy to make. Wash it, cut it into pieces and throw it into an acid jar or jar. You can take it out to eat in about two or three days. Or eat it as a snack, or sprinkle pepper to make a cold dish, or fry it with garlic and pork, all of which are excellent. In contrast, other memories about radishes, such as pulling radishes, drying dried radishes, making radishes and pickles, are not as profound as the first two.
Almost every household in southern rural areas grows sweet potatoes on a large scale. When I was a child, because of food shortage, it was not only common for sweet potatoes to cook and snack, but also common for steamed sweet potatoes and baked sweet potatoes to replace rice as staple food. If you can't go home for work, you can eat some cooked sweet potatoes for lunch when you leave. If the children don't prepare meals at home after school, it is most convenient to pick up the raw sweet potato next to them to satisfy their hunger. Its storage period is very long, and sweet potatoes can be stored in the cellar until the seedlings emerge in the next spring. In our family, sweet potato is not only a supplement to human food, but also one of the main food sources for pigs. Guess which family grows more sweet potatoes and raises more pigs. We mainly eat sweet potato leaves and tender shoots in summer and autumn, and eat its stems in winter. There are many ways: stir-frying, steaming, baking, making sweet potato porridge, and making dry red French fries as snacks. Baked sweet potatoes have been eaten by all the children in the city, but they were copied with charcoal fire or briquettes. The taste is different from that baked by rural people with firewood ash, which is a kind of joy. When all the food is sweet potato, you have high expectations for it; And you make your own fire, smell the sweet potato, and wait patiently. When the skin is burnt and the flesh is yellow, your expectations have risen to the highest point. I can't wait to peel off the hot skin and blow the steaming powder potato twice with my mouth, and the food can become intoxicating memories in my mouth. Children are impatient and often get burned. We all have the memory of throwing freshly baked sweet potatoes from left hand to right hand and back and forth. It's called pain and happiness. Memories are full of happy pictures.
I also have a special picture in the sweet potato field. One autumn afternoon, grandma and our three children were digging sweet potatoes. We compare each other while digging to see who digs the most sweet potatoes and who digs the most. As the hoe fell, strings of sweet potatoes jumped out of the ground happily, and in a short time, round sweet potatoes were all over the floor. Sweet potato is easy to survive and has high yield. Nothing is more enjoyable than harvesting sweet potatoes! I am not as strong as my brothers and sisters. I am depressed to see that everyone digs more than themselves. I stopped and chose a symmetrical sweet potato, just enough for my little hand to hold, took off the soil, wiped it with my sleeve, and simply sat on the edge of the vegetable garden and ate raw sweet potatoes. I just took the first bite and haven't had time to taste the natural sweetness of sweet potato. Suddenly I heard a voice shouting at my door: "Sister Guiying has been admitted to junior high school. Congratulations! " Everyone eagerly asked the caller to come to other places, only to know that my sister had passed the township middle school. Only three students are admitted to a class! This is really a glorious thing. Grandma and they all cheered and congratulated each other, and my sister was beaming. I am a little scared and a little envious: "It should be a great thing to go to junior high school!" " I don't remember the taste of sweet potato that day, but I remember the strong desire of rural people to become cultural people through reading. My sister's pink face and clear eyes in the sun, watching the notice in her hand excitedly, became the happiest picture in my eyes.
In fact, there are still many memories of pumpkins in the vegetable garden. When to eat pumpkin flowers in spring, find tender pumpkins to fry ducks in summer, and put all the old red pumpkins in the yard in autumn for a whole winter. In winter, except radishes, cabbages, vegetables and garlic, many places in the vegetable garden are deserted and ready for use. It turns out that most of the vegetables in the garden have been moved into the house by the owner. Hard-working people's warehouses are often filled with cans of peppers, melons, pumpkins and all kinds of dried vegetables, pickles and sauerkraut. It seems that the excitement of all vegetable gardens in spring, summer and autumn is concentrated in one room in winter. Because of the cold winter and thin clothes, children don't play in the garden for a long time, and adults leave in a hurry after picking vegetables. Only the hibiscus flowers that are evergreen all the year round are always in bloom. That's why I love it the most. The world with flowers is beautiful.
Today, I have been away from the countryside for more than 20 years, and I have already changed from a rural person to a cultural person and a city person. The memory of sweet potatoes and various fruits and vegetables in the vegetable garden has not decreased by half a point, but has become more and more abundant with the years. The memory of this vegetable garden has always been like the joy of those poultry in it. As far as I can remember, many times I was alone or picking flowers and fruits in the garden with my grandmother to do farm work, or watching chickens and ducks play under the fence tree during the slack season. At that time, there was a shortage of food in the countryside, rice was not enough to eat, fish was rarely eaten, and candy was even rarer. Therefore, the vegetable garden and the surrounding fruit trees have become the biggest food source at home. What is more attractive than a vegetable garden for children who love to look for food everywhere and grow up with melons all day? Now that grandma has gone away, the vegetable garden is much deserted, and I don't often go back. The vegetable garden of childhood has grown into my heart in middle age.