Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 622 Help the Village Chief Find a Solution

After all the beets were boiled into sugar, some of the flower buds were kept for their own use, and some were given to Pei Jingyang, Madam Han, and other relatives.

He sent some back to Shangjing City to old Marquis Pei and his parents. The rest was sold in the grocery store.

The stems and leaves of beets can be stir-fried as ordinary vegetables, made into soup, or eaten cold. They are nutritious and taste very good.

Wash and blanch the beet leaves, chop them into small pieces, add oil, salt, vinegar, minced garlic and other seasonings, mix them in a cold dish, and wait for 15 minutes before you can eat them. You can eat them with rice or porridge.

Because there were a lot of beet leaves, Hualei sent them to Baiweilou, used them to make various dishes, and earned a lot of money.

Of course, the old stems are not wasted. The uneaten ones are dried and used as winter fodder for cattle, sheep and horses. As long as they are useful, the flower buds will never be wasted.

Because the child had a wet nurse to take care of him, Qingqi and Qinghua also looked after him, and Madam Han often came over to help take care of him, so Hualei was not very busy in the house.

After the confinement period, apart from the necessary rest, I would occasionally flip through books and take notes.

That day, two village chiefs came to Hualei's house. The two villages were located in the northwest of Mobei, and were quite far from the county government office. Therefore, they seldom came to the county government office.

In October, when the village chief came to the county government to report on his work, they met the village chiefs of other villages and heard about the actual situation in other villages. While they were envious and jealous, they also secretly regretted not seizing the opportunity.

Then they went to find Magistrate Zou, hoping that he would help introduce Hua Lei to her. But at that time, Hua Lei was still in confinement.

So Magistrate Zou asked them to delay for more than half a month, until Hualei was out of confinement, and then asked them to come to find Hualei with a simple topographic map of their village.

So, at this time, even though they knew that Hua Lei had just come out of confinement and it was not very suitable, they still came shamelessly for the sake of the people in the village who were hungry and cold.

After all, if Hualei has a way, it would be a better day for the villagers.

After Hualei understood their purpose, she took out her notes. In fact, Hualei had always kept the remaining villages in mind.

Therefore, even if they hadn't come to find her, Hualei had already been paying attention to them. The people of Mobei, apart from the meager output from the fields, which was barely enough to feed themselves, had basically no other income.

Therefore, even making cotton clothes for family members to keep warm or having an extra meal of meat is difficult to do.

Hualei knew that the most urgent thing now was to ensure that the people had cash income as soon as possible so that the houses that were crushed during the snowstorm could be rebuilt as soon as possible and they could survive the coming winter. She hoped that the situation would be better this year and that there would be no more snowstorms.

The newly arrived Beihai Village and Beihu Village, although their names both contain water, are actually backed by mountains. The mountains are not barren, but are covered with various bamboos.

The bamboo here is slightly different from the bamboo in the south. This bamboo is very cold-resistant and has winter bamboo shoots in winter.

The sour bamboo shoots that Hualei made last year were made from the winter bamboo shoots of this bamboo. Of course, if the winter bamboo shoots are not dug up, they will continue to grow in the spring and become bamboo shoots.

However, there are differences in the harvest season, appearance and taste between winter bamboo shoots and hairy bamboo shoots. Winter bamboo shoots are the young shoots of bamboo that have not yet emerged in winter. They are usually harvested from early December to late February of the following year. They are turmeric yellow in color and have a relatively fresh and delicious taste.

The spring bamboo shoots are usually harvested from mid-March to late April. At this time, the winter bamboo shoots have already broken through the soil and received sunlight, so the bamboo shoots are brown-yellow in color. They are also larger and stronger.

The fiber is also relatively coarse and a bit astringent, and the taste is not as good as winter bamboo shoots, but they are very good for making dried bamboo shoots. So Hualei told the two village chiefs about winter bamboo shoots and hairy bamboo shoots.

We also gave them the method of making sour and dried winter bamboo shoots, and wrote down the specific steps for them. We also signed a purchase agreement for winter and sour bamboo shoots with them, stipulating that no matter whether the villagers want to sell fresh winter bamboo shoots, sour bamboo shoots or dried bamboo shoots, the flower buds will be purchased.

However, in order to prevent unnecessary trouble, Hualei also agreed with the village chief not to pay a deposit for the time being, but to pay the full amount upon seeing the goods. The two village chiefs readily agreed.

Hua Lei has already thought about it. Fresh winter bamboo shoots can be supplied to his own Baiweilou. If there are any surplus, he can make sour and dried bamboo shoots and other derivative products.

Hualei is not afraid of competition, because she knows that she cannot monopolize the market, and she does not want to do so. She hopes that these villagers can master a skill as soon as possible, become self-reliant, and then drive the development of other villages.

In this way, her fleet would also be put to good use. She would buy the sour and dried bamboo shoots from the villagers and send them to Shangjing City and several prefectures in Jiangnan Prefecture for sale. She could also make money.

In order to give the village chief confidence and to allow the villagers to get cash as soon as possible, Hualei paid a deposit directly and ordered a large number of bamboos that were more than five years old, asking the village chief to cut the bamboo into certain lengths and deliver them to the villagers.

What Hualei didn't say was that she was going to use bamboo to have the charcoal mill try to make bamboo charcoal. If it worked, there would be no shortage of follow-up orders from the two villages.

Last year, the barren hills that could be harvested for free were sold in large quantities because of the Ministry of Revenue's sales in the first half of the year. Moreover, recently, the Ministry of Industry has also been cutting down wood and digging mud to make bricks in various barren hills. It is embarrassing for me to openly snatch food from the tiger's mouth.

Therefore, buying from the villagers is also a good choice. At least you can ask them to help cut the fruits and deliver them to your door, so you don’t have to worry about being short of manpower.

In addition, a large number of rabbit cages were customized because Hualei's rabbit farm was going to be expanded. Bamboo rabbit cages are more cost-effective than wooden ones.

Manager Pei has been very busy recently and has no time to make the rabbit cage himself. The timber workshop has been very busy recently because of the orders from the Ministry of Industry and the tatami chair business. Therefore, it is most convenient to customize the rabbit cage directly.

In addition, Hualei also gave the two village heads an idea, asking them to use bamboo to make some bamboo baskets and bamboo dustpans for carrying soil.

The bamboo baskets and dustpans brought by the Ministry of Works for carrying soil are now worn out. However, the Ministry of Works is short of manpower, and apart from making wooden windows and doors for building houses, there is no time to make the bamboo dustpans and baskets needed for carrying soil, so they have not been replaced.