Chapter 37: Fertilizing the Tea Plantation

Chapter 37: Fertilizing the Tea Garden

The red-haired aunt's ability to drive sales was indeed unparalleled.

Under her leadership, old customers would order three or five catties without hesitation, while new customers would hesitate over one or two catties.

Consequently, by the time another group of customers saw the news and made a special trip, they discovered—

"I was only half an hour late, how is everything already gone?"

"Exactly! Didn't they say no one likes eating Chinese milk vetch today and wouldn't buy it?"

"Right! I hesitated for a long time before coming. I originally planned to just buy one catty to try it out, just to support the boss!"

Song Tan:???

There were actually such insane comments in the group chat?

She quickly opened her phone and, sure enough, many familiar avatars were there discussing all the reasons why Chinese milk vetch was unpopular, acting as if the business was about to collapse.

However, when she clicked on her WeChat payments, several of them had scanned the code to pay eighty or a hundred yuan.

Song Tan:...The world is full of tricks!

The customers also realized what was happening. At this moment, they looked at her empty baskets with tearful eyes, and finally, their gazes shifted to the bowl of cold-dressed Chinese milk vetch in Qiaoqiao's hands that hadn't been finished yet. They looked eager

"What's this?"

Song Tan simply handed over some disposable chopsticks: "This is the 'unpopular' Chinese milk vetch."

With complex emotions, several customers each took a reserved bite, and instantly, tears fell like rain—

"If I believe their nonsense again, I'll be a puppy!"

Qiaoqiao's eyes lit up: "Woof woof woof!!!"

Stimulated by this, the crowd had no choice but to tearfully finish the remaining dish, then made an agreement to make a massive purchase tomorrow morning before reluctantly departing.

Song Tan:...It didn't have to go that far.

Once they left, Song Tan quickly checked the small basket of Chinese milk vetch in the back seat of the car: "Let's go, Qiaoqiao, to the courier station."

She had to send the one requested by the out-of-town customer.

...

Returning home, Song Tan counted the money collected today and found that, added together, it had reached another two thousand yuan, even without picking much today.

Wulan had gone from being dazed to accepting the situation calmly, and had even started planning for that field

"If you ask me, if this makes money, you might as well stop feeding the cows and pigs."

Song Tan shook her head: "Mom, the main purpose of planting this is to fertilize the soil. This field hasn't been cultivated for years; it needs to be tended to."

"Besides, Chinese milk vetch grows fast. With so many plots, we won't be able to sell it all anyway, so there's no need to be stingy."

Just as she finished speaking, she saw Song Sancheng carrying a hoe, preparing to head out. She looked at the gloomy sky that looked like it was about to rain: "Dad, what are you doing?"

Song Sancheng replied: "I'm going to dig the tea garden. When I went up the mountain the other day, I noticed the tea garden near our place has started budding. The old leaves are lush and green, so I might as well apply some nitrogen fertilizer before it rains."

Fertilizing a tea garden generally requires choosing a time before it rains, digging a shallow layer of soil, and spreading the fertilizer.

This way, when the rain falls, it is easy for the plants to absorb it without burning the seedlings.

As he spoke, he looked a bit gleeful: "I think our land is very spiritual this year; whatever we grow tastes good. We might as well pick more tea leaves; they'll surely taste great too!"

Hearing him say this, Song Tan also remembered the old tea garden at home.

In previous years, these tea leaves could still fetch some money. Later, as the internet developed and marketing became more intense, tea without a brand like theirs lost its market.

As a result, everyone left the several acres of tea gardens untended, just drinking it themselves every year. If they really wanted to earn money, they would go out to work in the second half of the year.

In Song Tan's family, because of Qiaoqiao's condition and the couple's heartache for the child, they refused to take him to the factory, so they needed to leave one person at home every year.

Naturally, they had more time to tend to the family's fields.

The moisture in the air grew heavier; there would definitely be a spring rain by evening. Song Tan thought of the flavor of her hometown's tea—slightly bitter with a sweet aftertaste—and couldn't help but feel tempted.

She turned around and grabbed a hoe: "Dad, let's do it together."

Song Sancheng intended to stop her: "This is heavy labor, you're just a girl..."

But then he remembered how his daughter was hardworking and could carry two large baskets at once without any effort, so he fell silent.

After thinking for a moment, he simply called his son: "Qiaoqiao, let's go, time to farm!"

Qiaoqiao rushed out: "Are we planting corn?"

...

The tea mountain was still some distance from home.

One had to loop around from the front to the back mountain, climb the small path on the back mountain, and reach the other side to see the vast tea gardens.

The large expanse here naturally belonged to Song Tan's family.

Looking at the lush green leaves, Song Sancheng couldn't help but sigh: "The weather is good this year; the late spring cold wasn't that severe. In previous years at this time, it would snow, and the tea leaves would almost certainly be damaged by the frost."

As he spoke, he swung his hoe and began digging furrows.

Song Tan truly had no experience with fertilizing, so she simply followed his lead and started digging.

With every movement, wisps of spiritual energy entwined around the tea plants on both sides of the furrows, row by row, column by column...

The sky grew increasingly dark, as if it were about to rain at any moment.

Song Sancheng looked at the large area of land he had quickly shallow-dug, then looked at the area Qiaoqiao had already carefully scattered fertilizer over, and was startled—

"You're digging so fast!"

Originally, this section of the tea garden would have taken a long time. If they were waiting until October to apply base fertilizer with deeper furrows, it would have taken him over a week alone!

But now, only an hour had passed, and this was already a huge area—even if it only required shallow digging without much force, the efficiency shouldn't be this high, right?

The experienced old farmer couldn't help but wonder

"Have I been eating more lately? Is my body finally recovered? I feel like I'm getting more energetic the more I work."

Song Tan remained silent, pretending it had nothing to do with the spiritual energy she had released.

Song Sancheng didn't even think to suspect her; he just went to look at the area she had dug and expressed surprise at her overly agile hoe-work—

"Aiya! You really were born to farm! Look at how you're doing it, so fast and so well!"

"Daughter, it seems our home's soil and water really nurture people. Look how much stronger you've become!"

Qiaoqiao followed behind the hoe, huffing and puffing as he scattered fertilizer, while also sticking his tongue out at Song Sancheng: "Daddy doesn't know how to farm, so slow!"

Song Sancheng chuckled: "As long as I can plant corn better than you."

"Qiaoqiao, stop following your sister, just scatter it row by row."

He had been so busy lately that he had remembered too late; they had already missed the best season for fertilizing.

Furthermore, the rain seemed to be arriving half a day earlier than forecasted, so there was no time left for more digging.

He could only say that every little bit of digging helped, and the rest could just be scattered directly on the soil surface.

Turning to look at the tea garden, Song Sancheng couldn't help but sigh again: "If we were serious about picking these four or five acres of tea, we could have harvested about a hundred catties of dried tea by the end of the spring tea season."

"But there are so many things to do in early spring, there's no time to deal with it. What a waste."

Farm work is truly hard; it's not as easy as I described! Including tea picking.

Note New month, more monthly tickets please!!! Thank you everyone! (I've been supporting since the early hours, which made me so excited I couldn't sleep... it's definitely not because I washed my hair at midnight!) Likely to go on sale mid-month, please continue to support!

(End of Chapter)