bookrandom Chapter 174 Harvesting Potatoes
Chapter 174 Harvesting Potatoes
At dawn, the beastmen of the Azure Flame Tribe ate breakfast and then set off, carrying their baskets on their backs.
They are going to the planting area to harvest potatoes today. Lin Baiyan planted the potato field in early March, and now in mid-July, the potatoes are ready for harvest.
After filling his large bamboo tube with water, Lin Baiyan came out, where his tribesmen had been waiting for him outside the cave for a long time.
This potato harvest is a huge undertaking, so Wolf Cang only left ten male orcs to guard the tribe, while the rest of the orcs had to go to the planting area.
"Let's go." Lin Baiyan adjusted his straw hat.
Upon arriving at the planting area, Xiang Lei emerged from his small house and smiled shyly at Lin Baiyan, "Priest."
Xiang Lei was originally sent by Lin Baiyan to guard the planting area and prevent wild animals from damaging it. At first, he was not very willing because he would rather join the hunting team and hunt with Lang Cang and the others.
But after spending a long time in the planting area, Xiang Lei discovered that he actually really enjoyed farming. Watching the plants grow thriving day by day filled him with joy.
So he simply applied to Lin Baiyan to stay in the planting area, watering the land and weeding when he had nothing to do. He seemed to have found another kind of fun.
At this moment, Xiang Lei, who was not yet an adult, seemed to have opened another door to his beastly life.
Seeing how serious he was, Lin Baiyan had Lu Xiao lead a construction team to build him a house next to the planting area, which would serve as a temporary dormitory for him and the beastmen in the planting area, where they could rest and relax.
As for the tribe, there is also a separate house for Elephant, so he can switch shifts with other orcs when he wants to come back.
Xiang Lei was very happy about this and immediately moved his bedding to the planting area to settle down.
"I went to check the potato fields yesterday, and they're mostly ripe." Xiang Lei had learned a lot about farmland from Lin Baiyan.
Lin Baiyan nodded, and the group of beastmen behind him were almost speechless with astonishment at the sight of the planting area.
They don't usually go into the planting area. Apart from a few beastmen personally appointed by Lin Baiyan to be in charge of the planting area, the tribe knows very little about the situation in the planting area.
They only knew that the priest had planted plants in the planting area. Compared to planting, the beastmen were more skilled at gathering, so they didn't really understand Lin Baiyan's ideas.
However, the beastmen have one very good quality: they obey orders. So when Lin Baiyan said he wanted to open up a planting area, no one objected.
"Priest, are all these food plants underneath?" This was the first time the male beastmen had participated in a gathering activity. Xiong Fei stared wide-eyed at the vast expanse of lush green plants.
Is data collection really that easy?
Lin Baiyan nodded and drew a line with her slender finger beside her. "From here to next to that tree, there are potato fields, which is where we're going to harvest today."
Lin Baiyan stepped forward, pulled out a potato stem, revealing the various sizes of potato fruits underneath.
He was also holding an iron shovel, a farm tool made by the blacksmith team. Ever since Lin Baiyan had mastered iron, he had selected a few more men from among the male orcs to be in charge of blacksmithing, with Zhu Shan serving as the captain of the blacksmith team.
Lin Baiyan used a shovel to loosen the soil around the potatoes, shoveled out the potatoes from the bottom, and shook off the excess roots and soil covering them.
"Be careful not to damage the potato skin when harvesting."
"If you use the shovel too hard, the potatoes will break in half, and then they won't keep well and you'll have to eat them."
Most of the sub-beastmen had gathered potatoes before, but there are still many potatoes available today, and many male beastmen have not gathered them before.
After Lin Baiyan demonstrated once, he divided the orcs into several teams, each led by a sub-orc who knew how to gather, and they began harvesting potatoes.
Everyone started working with great enthusiasm.
When the orcs dug the potatoes out of the ground one by one with their own hands, each orc's face was filled with disbelief.
It seems that only now do they truly understand the meaning of the word "planting." Can they really obtain so much food just by scattering seeds in the ground, watering them, and weeding them?
By the God of Beasts!
What a joke!
How come they didn't notice this before?!
The priest truly lived up to his name; he knew so much. Seeing this magnificent sight, the beastmen's respect for Lin Baiyan deepened even further.
Before Lin Baiyan could say anything, he felt the epiphyllum mark on his wrist getting slightly hot. He raised his wrist without making a sound, and sure enough, the epiphyllum mark seemed to have increased a little bit.
He was a little confused. He hadn't said anything yet, so what were these beastmen imagining?
Even more surprising were the new arrivals of the dwarf beastmen, who followed behind the Azure Flame Tribe beastmen, picking potatoes into their baskets.
The dwarf sparrow was a little dizzy. Did the beastmen of the Azure Flame Tribe get food so easily?
On the day he was brought to the Azure Flame Tribe, he thought he was going to die, but unexpectedly, he not only did not become the beastmen's meal, but also met Uncle Hong.
Even more fantastical was the fact that the Azure Flame Tribe said they would be fed as long as they worked, and every new dwarf beast cherished their time there immensely.
As it turned out, this was indeed the case. Every day here, as long as they did their job, the Azure Flame Tribe would provide them with enough food to eat. No acquaintances would steal their food, and there was no insult or abuse.
Life here feels like a dream.
Dwarf Sparrow's heart, which had been as calm as still water, began to ripple. His previously numb eyes lit up with a glimmer of hope for the future. Dwarf Red had told him that as long as they performed well and accumulated enough work points, they could join the Azure Flame Tribe.
While everyone was busy harvesting potatoes, Lin Baiyan walked around the planting area and marked out the wasteland to be reclaimed later.
The chili seeds we got from the Silver Tiger Clan have sprouted and been planted. They are growing well, with several small chili fruits hanging on them.
However, these are not edible; they must be saved as seeds for the following year.
The unknown seeds collected from the tribe were also sown, and several kinds of vegetables that Lin Baiyan had seen before had ripened, making the tribe's food more abundant.
With many hands making light work, they harvested the potatoes in just two days and then put them all into the cave.
The first batch of potatoes was small, mainly because he didn't save many seeds. Now it's mid-July, and he can still plant another batch of potatoes before the snow season, so they can harvest them before the winter. Then they won't have to worry about food for the winter.
With this new batch of potatoes as seeds, Lin Baiyan plans to open another ten acres of planting area.
The land in the north is very fertile, especially the plains along the river. The potatoes grow big and good. Lin Baiyan and his team hardly used any fertilizer, and this batch of potatoes yielded about 4,000 catties.
The beastmen saw the benefits of planting and fully agreed with Lin Baiyan's plan, so everyone worked with all their might.
Lin Baiyan couldn't help but laugh as she thought about her leisurely life during the snowy season, nestled in a warm house, watching the snow and roasting potatoes.