"No wonder I thought some of the seeds I planted last time already sprouted green shoots. It turns out they were pre-sprouted. When did you do this, and how did I not know?"
"What about now?" Yang Chuxia asked again.
Ye Zi’an smiled calmly, "The fact proves that the records in the other book were wrong, and I was also wrong. This one cannot be pruned and should only be pre-sprouted for planting. So we can transplant these seedlings from the wooden box to the ground tomorrow."
"Alright!" Yang Chuxia said, "But these seedlings don’t seem like a lot, how much land can they cover?"
"About one or two acres." Ye Zi’an estimated after looking at the seedlings, "The soil here has a good base fertilizer, and since the seeds have sprouted, there will be more seedlings. Almost every two seeds will produce two seedlings. Based on this calculation, I think we should be able to plant about two acres."
Upon hearing this, Yang Chuxia nodded, "In that case, both your family and my family will plant some separately."
So, on the second day, Yang Chuxia, Ye Zi’an, and Yang Dachuan planted the seedlings together.
Planting the seedlings was quite laborious, requiring digging holes one by one in the tilled soil before planting them one by one.
It was like planting rapeseed for others.
It took two days to finish planting all the seedlings.
As for the sugarcane seeds, there were very few of them. After Yang Chuxia finished planting them, she directly requisitioned the family’s vegetable field for them.
But just after finishing all this, Yang Chuxia realized that her family would be getting busier and busier.
Because it would soon be time for the fishing season, the fishermen would have to go back to sea to fish, and then they would have to marinate the drunken crabs and drunken shrimps, and the broad beans would also be ripe, so they would have to make bean paste and shrimp sauce.
These tasks were piling up, and she found herself short of hands again.
She couldn’t just use the few servants at Yang Dayong’s place casually anymore because they were busy with their own work.
She realized that her family needed to either buy more people or find someone else to help with their tasks.
"Xiaxia, what’s on your mind?" Ye Zi’an saw that Yang Chuxia was absent-mindedly peeling off broad bean pods and wondered what she was thinking.
Now was the period when the tender broad beans could be cooked as a dish. Yang Chuxia knew that stir-fried broad beans were delicious, so she asked Yang Dachuan to bring some back from the field in the morning.
"I was thinking that now is the time for tender broad beans, and by the end of the month at the latest, the beans will be old and ready to be harvested. Then, it will be time to marinate drunken shrimp and drunken crab, and we will also have to start making shrimp sauce. It seems like all these tasks are happening at once, and we don’t have enough people."
When Yang Chuxia mentioned this, she felt worried. Last year, they didn’t make many of these products, and they made them at different times, so they didn’t feel overwhelmed. But now, with everything happening at once, they desperately needed more manpower.
Her mother and two maids had to roast peanuts and soybeans every other day on a fixed schedule.
Ye Zi’an had to go to town every other day and regularly purchase peanuts and soybeans, so he took on that job too.
As for Yang Dachuan, he spent almost all day in the field because, with the broad beans ripening, he feared the villagers might steal them. If there was nothing else to do, he would be in the field all day long.
"Hire laborers or buy people." Ye Zi’an said succinctly, "We can also start by finding some capable women from the village to help out and then go to town to buy more people. We can keep the production methods in our hands, but tasks like sealing, cleaning, and packing can be handed over to outsiders."