Starting with vegetable greenhouses in 1988

Chapter 25 Completed
9 month 16 day.

North of Daying Village, at the edge of Li Family's field.

Li Zhiqiang started digging again, but this time it was different from usual. He only needed to dig a hole about the size of a bowl. He said it was for laying the foundation for the cement pillars of the greenhouse.

The depth of the pits also varies; the pits near the south side are shallower, while those near the north side are deeper. There are four pits in a row, and there are twenty rows from east to west, for a total of eighty pits to be dug.

Today, there were fewer than half the workers, only ten people, and they were all acquaintances.

Li Zhe and his brother, Wang Jianjun, Zhao Tiezhu, and the six young, strong laborers he hired. Everyone knew that Li Zhe was quick to pay wages, and the young men were willing to work hard.

As noon approached, the work was almost finished. Li Zhe told everyone to take a break, and then he took a ruler and measured the depth of each pit.

"Da da da……"

A tractor belching black smoke drove up the dirt road and slowly stopped at the side of the road. Old Li got off the tractor.

Li Zhe hurried to greet him, "Dad, was the journey smooth?"

"By the way, I've checked. The cement quality is fine, and the quantity is correct." After saying that, Old Li turned around and shouted, "Young men, unload the truck."

Li Zhiqiang brought over several workers, and they hurriedly moved the cement pillar down.

Li Zhe led them to install the cement pillars. The bottom of the pit was compacted and covered with gravel to prevent settlement. The cement pillars were generally buried to a depth of one-fifth of their total height.

A dozen or so people worked together, some moving, some burying, and some tamping. By the time the sun set, all the cement pillars were planted in the ground.

Li Zhiqiang was exhausted and collapsed onto the ground. He had been fine while working, but after resting for a day yesterday, he felt sore all over and found it difficult to get back to work.

When it came time to collect his wages, he deliberately lingered until the very end, waiting until everyone else had left before approaching Li Zhe.

"Qiangzi, here's your pay for today."

"Uncle, there were many people before, so if I didn't take wages, it wouldn't be right for others to take them either. Now it's just a few of us who are close to each other, so I don't want the money." Li Zhiqiang said this, but he still remembered his father's scolding from yesterday. Although he looked down on the old man for being drunk all the time, some of what he said made sense.

The two families aren't close, and it's really not right for me to keep receiving the money. There's not much work left, and I can't do it for more than two days, so I might as well just help out.

"Alright, then I won't stand on ceremony with you." Li Zhe put the money back in his pocket. "Let's pack up our things and go home for dinner."

"Okay." This time, Li Zhiqiang didn't refuse and carried the shovel home.

After eating and drinking his fill, it was already getting dark when Li Zhiqiang strolled home, burping contentedly.

Hearing the commotion, Li Jiugang came out of the courtyard. "What time is it? You still know to come back? Hey, you've been drinking? Where did you drink?"

“I didn’t ask for wages today; I ate at Grandpa Zhenhua’s house.”

Li Jiugang glared at him, "You little brat, you're enjoying yourself without inviting your old man. Didn't Uncle Zhenhua invite me?"

"I did greet them, but I didn't agree."

"You brat! Are you deliberately trying to anger your father?"

Li Zhiqiang ignored him, washed himself, went into the west room, and fell asleep immediately.

Li Jiugang was so angry that he didn't sleep half the night. He was eating at a banquet and they didn't even invite him! When he woke up the next morning, his eyes looked like a panda's.

After Li Zhiqiang got up, he still ignored him, ate two steamed buns made from mixed flour, and was about to leave.

After walking a few steps, I saw Li Jiugang also carrying a shovel out the door. "What are you doing?"

"What I do is none of your business." Li Jiugang didn't stop, carrying his hoe and walking north.

The father and son, one after the other, arrived at the Li family's field in the north of the village.

From a distance, Li Jiugang greeted him, "Uncle Zhenhua."

"Wine vat, is this for going to the ground?"

“My land has been tidied up a long time ago. I heard you still have some work to do, so I came to lend a hand.”

"That would be great, let's have a few drinks tonight." Old Li knew his nephew, who was the same age as him, all too well, and his words hit the nail on the head.

"I should have had a couple of drinks with you a long time ago." Li Jiugang rubbed his hands together. "We men haven't gotten together since after the New Year."

As they were chatting, Zhao Tiezhu drove the horse-drawn cart over, which was piled with bundles of bamboo. "Uncle, we can't finish this trip, we'll have to make two more. Brother Zhe told us to tie the bamboo poles together with wire first."

"Got it," Old Li replied, then called out, "Qiangzi, unload the bamboo poles."

"I'll do it." Li Jiugang jumped onto the cart first, his arm muscles bulging as he threw the whole bundle of bamboo on the ground with a "thud." Old Li secretly gave him a thumbs up; this nephew of his didn't drink, but he was a perfect worker.

In the time it takes to smoke half a pipe, Li Zhe and Zhao Tiezhu brought another cart of bamboo. In addition to Li Jiugang, who came to help out, Uncle Wang Rongsheng also came to lend a hand, making a total of thirteen people working in the field.

Li Zhe used old bamboo, about the thickness of a rolling pin, and over four meters long. Each bamboo was carefully inspected to ensure there were no signs of insect damage. He twisted the ends of the bamboo poles together with wire to form a frame connecting the north and south sides of the greenhouse.

Once the bamboo was almost bundled together, Li Zhe took out a red paper with the words "Good Luck for Raising the Beam" written on it and pasted it on the middle bamboo stalk.

Under Li Zhe's command, one person stood on the south side, one person stood on the back wall on the north side, and two others held supports to prop up the bamboo and placed it on the cement pillar, where it was tied and secured with wire.

Old Li shouted at the top of his lungs, "May the raising of the roof beam bring you great fortune! May good luck shine upon you!"

"Crackling and popping..." Li Weidong lit a string of firecrackers, attracting many villagers to watch the spectacle.

After the smoke cleared, they continued working, and only then were they able to erect a bamboo frame. There was still a lot of work to be done.

The thirteen people split into two groups and, following a similar method to Li Zhe's earlier work, fixed together the bamboo poles to form the overall framework of the vegetable greenhouse, somewhat resembling an animal skeleton.

There were many people today, so we started working earlier than usual. In just one morning, we built the frame of the greenhouse using bamboo.

In the afternoon, they still needed to lay the greenhouse film and straw mats. Time was tight, so Li Zhe ate a few bites of lunch hastily and then packed up the things he needed for the afternoon, asking Zhao Tiezhu to take them to the field in a horse-drawn cart.

Two rolls of plastic film, an old wooden bed, bedding and other daily necessities, and straw curtains that couldn't be pulled in one trip, so Zhao Tiezhu made several more trips.

In the afternoon, Li Zhe directed everyone to lay the greenhouse film, a delicate task that could not be done carelessly.

Li Zhe gestured with the plastic sheet, "Uncle, stretch this side a bit more! Zhu Zi, pass me the tape! Make sure the seams are sealed tightly, there can't be any air leaks."

After the greenhouse film was glued on, a dozen men shouted slogans as they lifted the film onto the roof, unfolded it along the frame and flattened it, and then pressed the edges of the film down with soil and sandbags.

The top of the film is tightened with nylon rope, and both ends are fixed with ground anchors. One rope is set every 2 meters to form a net-like reinforcement. Once this step is completed, the entire greenhouse is already in a closed state.

The sudden appearance of this huge, white monster in the field astonished the passing villagers.

The villagers, seeing it for the first time, were startled. "Good heavens, what's that? Is the Li family going to open a factory?"

A villager who had come to see what was going on earlier explained, "What factory? I heard they built a vegetable greenhouse to grow vegetables in there."

"Huqin! The Frost's Descent is just around the corner, the vegetable seedlings will freeze solid."

"I heard from the people who work for Old Li's family that this shed is about ten degrees warmer than outside after it was built." An old man with a red face squatted by the roadside, watching with great interest.

"Come on, let me take a look." A man in his thirties squeezed through the crowd. He had a distinctive build, with a large head and a thin body, like a walking sunflower.

"Hey, Zhu Yimin, your family has been growing vegetables for three generations. Tell us, is it really possible to grow vegetables in these greenhouses during the winter?"

Zhu Yimin's land was not far from Li's, and he had been paying attention to Li's activities for a long time. He would take a stroll around every day, not for any other reason than that his family also grew vegetables.

When it comes to growing vegetables, the Zhu family has a long-standing tradition of it. Back in the production team days, his father was the one who tended the vegetable garden.

"I don't know either," Zhu Yimin replied dismissively, but his eyes gleamed.

As the old saying goes, the layman sees the spectacle, while the expert sees the details.

He wasn't sure if vegetables could be grown in a greenhouse during winter, since it's too cold and no one can say for sure how well the greenhouse retains heat.

But he had not only seen similar greenhouses, but had also used them.

His family are vegetable farmers, and they have a deep understanding of the principle that vegetables are valuable when they are scarce. When there are plenty of vegetables, the price is low; when there are few vegetables, the price is high.

In order to make more money, his father came up with the idea of ​​an early spring seedling shed.

Winter had just passed, and the weather was still cold, so vegetables couldn't grow outdoors. His father built a seedling shed with bamboo poles and plastic film to raise the soil temperature and sow the seeds in advance. After ten days or so, when the seedlings had grown bigger and the weather had warmed up, he planted them in the ground.

His vegetables would sell half a month to twenty days earlier than others. Don't underestimate this period, because the quantity of vegetables is small, the price is high, and he earns more.

However, his seedling shed is small, only about ten square meters, and its heat preservation performance is only average, a few degrees higher than the outside temperature. He never dared to dream of a wintering shed of several hundred square meters like this before.

That's incredibly daring.

……

As dusk fell, the last roll of straw curtain was fixed to the roof, and the entire winter-warm vegetable greenhouse was completely completed.

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(End of this chapter)