Essays on vegetable garden and sauce jar

in the vast northeast countryside, there is a garden for growing vegetables in front of and behind every house. When the production team divides the plots for growing vegetables, it should first allocate enough homestead area, and then divide the rest into plots for growing vegetables according to the population. If the area is still insufficient, it will be supplemented in the land next to the village.

In the spring ploughing season, before planting vegetables in the private plots of each family, the production team will send a pair of plowshares, which will be pulled by two old cows and go from house to house to ridge the vegetable garden. The vegetable garden is different from the crop field of the production team, and the position of the ridges and ridges is generally unchanged. In this way, it is necessary to break the ridge twice, and then close the ridge, and the ridge is deeper than the broken ridge.

Every time we visit a vegetable garden in spring, there will be a very beautiful scene, that is, a group of chickens will follow behind the plow. This is their happiest day of the year, and they can have a full meal of "meat". Because there will be a lot of earthworms in the vegetable field, and before they can get back into the ground, they will be eaten alive by the chickens that pounce on them. Even if they show a little bit of their heads, they will be dragged to death and it will be difficult to escape.

after each vegetable garden is finished, the production team will also send a pair of ground-pressing scorpions pulled by donkeys, which will be led by a special person to press the vegetable fields again in each house and flatten the ridge platform, which will not only reduce the evaporation of water, but also facilitate the cultivation of vegetables on the ridge.

before planting vegetables, enclose the vegetable garden with straw barriers to prevent livestock from entering. The straw used for the barrier is the sorghum stalks distributed by the production team last autumn. There are two preparations for the trap: first, select the straw, prepare a number of straw, remove the thin, short and curved ones, and remove the leaves, leaving only the trousers under the leaves. The second is to dig a barrier ditch. At the position of the barrier, a ditch nearly one foot deep and one shovel wide is dug, and the soil taken out is placed on both sides of the barrier ditch.

when you start to clamp the barrier, you should bury a strong wooden stake at the starting point, or tie several stalks together to replace the wooden stake. Three groups of stalks, two in each group, are folded horizontally and fixed at the upper, middle and lower parts of the stake respectively to form three bars of the barrier, of which the lower bar is in the barrier ditch. Then use three stalks at a time, and put their two ends on the side of the upper and lower bars, but the middle part is on the side of the middle bar, so that they are fixed. Then take three stalks so that the two ends are on the side of the upper and lower bars, but the middle part is on the side of the middle bar ... So, the reverse cycle goes on, and the barrier wall is woven. Those three bars can be connected with straw at any time. After every few meters, the soil on both sides of the barrier ditch will be cultivated and compacted. After the barrier is clamped, it can be leveled with a sickle at an equal height of about one and a half meters.

In the past, few families could afford to build a courtyard wall, and almost all the vegetable gardens in every household were surrounded by straw barriers. From spring to autumn, as long as you walk into a village, the first thing you will see is rows of neat straw barriers, which is also a unique scenery in the countryside at that time. In order to grow more vegetables, some people may plant beans at the edge of the barrier, and the bean seedlings will be covered with barriers. Some people throw the seeds of morning glory to the side of the barrier, and morning glory will be covered with barriers every year, which will add a beautiful stroke to the farmhouse and add a festive color.

willow hair blooms, and beans grow and melons grow. The first thing to plant is spring side dishes, such as spinach, lettuce, coriander, Chinese cabbage and so on. These spring vegetables with high water content need to be watered properly. It will grow out in about half a month and can be eaten with dipping sauce, which is the freshest vegetable in a year. These seasonal side dishes are more convenient than digging wild vegetables in the wild, especially the first spinach soup in spring, which is really delicious.

also plant some garlic and Mao Cong. First, loosen the soil on the ridge with a rake, then break the garlic of last year by petals and plant it in two rows with spacing of about two inches. Mao Cong was isolated by himself last year, which is the same as garlic cultivation. Two weeks later, garlic and Mao Cong will jump half a foot high, pull them off and remove the old skin, and they can be made into sauce dish. When the rest is ripe, it will be braided into garlic braids and Mao Cong braids, hung outside the window or baked in Fangshan head, and ready to eat.

if the potatoes were not stored in the vegetable cellar, they might have sprouted long ago. The buds are long enough to break off, and new buds will be born there in a few days. According to the direction of potato sprouts, the potato seeds are cut into pieces with a knife. When planting potatoes, cut a ditch on the ridge with a pick, press the potato seeds in the ditch in a single line three inches away, then cultivate them with the soil on both sides and step on them. Generally, new potatoes can be eaten two or three weeks before they enter the night.

the seed method of beans and cucumbers is simple, and they are all gouged out with pickaxes, with two or three seeds per plant. They also have a * * * similarity, that is, to climb vines after they grow, they need to build a strong frame with braces. To plant beans, you can also plan the seeds a little bigger, put beans seeds at one end and corn kernels at the other, so that you don't have to build a frame. Beans will climb vines on the corn stalks, commonly known as corn beans. When my mother planted a vegetable garden when I was a child, I always watched, and sometimes I planted a few plants according to my mother's instructions. In summer, when the farm is busy, pick a few cucumbers, rub them into silk and mix them with soy sauce to eat them as vegetables. Beans mature later, but there is a kind of premature beans that don't climb vines, only one crop, and when they are mature, they are pulled down together, and then some other late-maturing vegetables can be planted in situ. This kind of premature beans is called "May first". Later, people compared it to "May first" when they were pregnant before marriage, or when they got married for a few months.

Wogua and zucchini are generally planted in fields. Their seedlings are huge and dense, and their stalks have thorns, which can prevent poultry from drilling into vegetable fields. Wogua will taste better when it is ripe in autumn, while zucchini can be eaten when it is tender, which can be used as both soup and stuffing.

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and tobacco are all tiny seeds, so they are not suitable for direct planting. Most of them are planted first and then transplanted. In the past, rapeseed was not sold in the supply and marketing cooperatives in the countryside, but was specially cultivated by experienced old farmers last year and sold at the market next spring. There are also people who specialize in cultivating seedlings. In the rainy days in late spring and early summer, they carry the burden and go to the village to sell seedlings. These seedlings are most suitable for planting in vegetable gardens on rainy days. The soil is wet and will not wither. What impressed me the most was the eggplant planted in the vegetable garden in front of my house. The newly planted eggplant seedlings are only two inches high. When shading the seedlings every morning, a roll of mulch is folded back and forth to cover the seedlings. Every night, the mulch is uncovered, water is pumped from Dajing, and half a scoop of water is poured on each seedling. After the seedlings take root and slow down, there is no need to shade and water them.

celery or leek are usually planted by the side. Celery can be planted reasonably close, and seedlings can be planted at any time after it grows. Leek doesn't need to be ridged. Put a small handleless wine cup on the seedbed on the flat ground and sow it at the bottom of the handleless wine cup. The seeds will naturally distribute along the edge for a week, and then plant it every two or three inches, and the leek will grow one by one.

Sunflower skins can be planted in fields or roots, and can also be transplanted. In families with many children, there are more kinds of cucumbers, tomatoes and mushrooms.

All kinds of vegetables are densely distributed in the vegetable garden. At this time, animals can't pull plowshares to hoe the vegetable fields. Instead, they can only use pickaxes to hoe the grass and loosen the soil, prepare ridges with sharp picks, and lift the soil in the furrows to both sides of the ridge platform.

all the dishes on the dining table of the Zhuang family come from the vegetable garden all the year round, and no food is bought. Therefore, it is particularly important to take care of the vegetable garden. Whose garden has no weeds and lush vegetables shows that it is a hard-working family who can live, and it also represents the facade of a peasant housewife.

In summer, all kinds of vegetables in the farmer's vegetable garden have distinct layers. After the spring vegetables dipped in sauce are served on the table, the vegetables in summer also begin to grow. Today, cucumbers or gourds bloom, and tomorrow, peppers or eggplants will have a baby. The rich vegetable garden is green, purple and yellow ... colorful, with bees flying and butterflies dancing.

After dividing the fields into households, there are few kinds of sorghum, and we will never see the' scenery' of the straw barrier again. Every spring, people will rub groups of straw ropes to weave curtains made of corn straw instead of the straw barriers in the past. If you live near the mountain, it will be much better. You can clip wooden barriers or plant elm walls, also called fences, which are strong and sturdy, so you don't have to change crops every year, saving a lot of trouble.

In recent years, I went back to the fire to make dumplings to visit relatives, and found that every family is a concrete wall. Although it is solid and tidy, it has lost its natural simplicity and kindness. However, there is still a modest sauce jar in the sunny place near the wall in the door of each vegetable garden.

people often say that "the east is spicy and the west is sour, and the south is sweet and the north is salty". Northeast people love soy sauce, and soy sauce is indispensable for three meals a day, just like Sichuan and Chongqing people have a special feeling for Chili and Shanxi people for vinegar. If there is no big sauce on the table, it will make people feel that the meal lacks a lot of flavor.

Northeasters also have a habit of eating raw vegetables, such as Chinese cabbage, radish, green onion, lettuce and coriander ... There is a large plate of seasonal sauce dish on the dining table, and there is also a golden sauce in a blue porcelain bowl, which has long been a unique scenery on the dining table of farmers in Northeast China.

according to textual research, the tradition of making sauce originated from Manchu in northeast China. Manchu ancestors ran around in forests and grasslands, fighting in the south and fighting in the north, and often fried the grain, or ground it into face to make fried noodles, which was more convenient to eat again. But sometimes when it gets wet in the wild, it often ferments, but it is reluctant to throw it away, so it is mixed with water and mixed with salt to eat. This is actually the sauce of the earliest period. Up to now, in places where there are many Manchu people, the "dish sauce" is still served, that is, the soybeans are fried before cooking the soy sauce, and the rest of the practices are not much different from ordinary soy sauce.

When I was a child, I witnessed the whole process of making soy sauce more than once-selecting ingredients, making beans, making soy sauce, throwing soy sauce, storing, drying soy sauce, placing soy sauce, making soy sauce jars ... and these procedures were all very particular.

Every year, as soon as the second month of the lunar calendar is entered, each family will select the best soybeans as the sauce according to the size of the family, generally calculated at 5 Jin per person.

after washing and soaking the soybeans, put them in a large pot, add appropriate amount of water, bring them to a boil and simmer slowly. The soaked soy sauce is red and sticky. At this time, adults will give children a bowl of cooked soybeans, add chopped green onion and salt, and it tastes particularly fragrant.

When the beans in the pot were slightly cooled, they were crushed into a sticky paste with a special tool called bean pestle. Later, they were also pestled with a rice spoon and chopped with a kitchen knife. Until the end of the last century, a stuffing grinder appeared, so we bid farewell to pestle and chop, and we never saw bean pestle again.

The mashed soybean is smashed into square lumps on the table, which is commonly known as throwing big sauce.

put the sauce pieces in a cool and ventilated place to dry for three to five days, wrap them in kraft paper or newspaper after drying outside, and store them on the beam for fermentation. Each piece is about an inch apart, so it's good to have white hair inside. At this time, everything is ready, just waiting for the weather to warm up.

depending on the weather situation of the year, the date of sauce is usually the eighth, eighteenth or 28th day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar. Why is it customary to put sauce in these days? Some people say that it is to take eight as "fat", which means to let the big sauce "ferment" smoothly in the sauce jar.

On the morning of the sauce, the housewife took the sauce pieces off the beams, washed them with clear water, broke them into small pieces, and exposed them to the sun for disinfection and sterilization. If it's sunny, after a day of exposure, the sauce can be served in the evening.

generally, the ratio of beans used in the sauce to salt needed in the sauce is 3: 1. The big salt is turned into salt water with boiling water. At this time, a gauze wrapped with aniseed and pepper particles can also be put in boiling water to dissolve the fragrance. How much water should be used when adding sauce should also be well measured, so that the concentration of soy sauce after fermentation is appropriate, and it is not a good soy sauce if it is thin or thick.

Cleaning the sauce jar and fixing it in the vegetable garden in front of the house near the barrier to avoid the sun is more conducive to the fermentation of soy sauce. Wash the sauce rake and put it in the jar, then pour the sauce pieces, and finally pour the saturated salt water into the jar.

The sauce rake should be made of poplar or basswood with no peculiar smell, and the rake pole is slightly higher than the sauce jar, which is convenient for reaching the bottom of the jar. A square wooden board with a side length of about 1 cm is fixed at the bottom of it, which is shaped like a pottery rake, and is connected and fixed by the way of "tenon and tenon", because nails are easy to corrode and rust when soaked in sauce. The mouth of the jar is covered with tofu cloth, the corners are tied with nuts and the like, and a conical sauce hat made of straw is buckled on it, which is also called a sauce cloak. It can prevent rain or night dew from entering the sauce jar. Once rain and dew enter the sauce, maggots will be born. Therefore, the sauce jar must be labeled with a sauce hat.

After the sauce is placed, the sauce jar should not be moved for three days. In order to make the sauce block absorb salt in the tank and slowly dissolve it. After three days, remove the sauce hat and stir it in a sauce jar with a sauce rake in a certain direction to make the sauce pieces fully melt. At the same time, use a spoon to skim the impurities and foam floating on it, which is to make a sauce jar and skim the foam at the same time.

after a week or so, the sauce in the jar began to ferment. At this time, if you open the sauce jar again, there will be bursts of sauce. Beat the sauce jar and skim the sauce foam. This work is done once a day, with hundreds of beats each time. The purpose is to gradually break the sauce beans and promote fermentation. You can do this for a month, and you can eat soy sauce, commonly known as "crossing the moon." When the weather is good every day, uncover the sauce hat, let the sun shine on the sauce jar, and keep the sauce jar ventilated, so that the sauce jar will not produce odor due to excessive fermentation. People often say that "a big sauce tastes the same." In fact, it's no wonder that although the whole process of making sauce is similar, all kinds of conditions can't be exactly the same, so the taste of sauce is different.

There are many demons in the older generation. I remember there are two related to miso. First, if you eat the sauce that has not passed the month, you should enter the house through the door and not through the window; Second, the girl who got married that year can't touch the sauce jar when she goes back to her family. As for why, no one can tell clearly, and there is certainly no basis and reason, but it has been passed down from generation to generation. However, whether a housewife is qualified or not can be measured by tasting the pickles she pickled herself, the sticky bean buns she pinched and the taste of the big sauce she put down.

There are many ways to eat soy sauce. First, when dipping, such as potherb dipping sauce, green onion dipping sauce, cucumber dipping sauce, Chinese cabbage dipping sauce and dried tofu dipping sauce; The second is to make sauces of different materials, such as putting oil in the pot, heating, beating eggs, adding green pepper powder, and then putting the big sauce in the pot and heating it together, which is egg sauce, minced meat sauce, fish sauce and potato sauce. Thirdly, sauce is used as the main seasoning, which is combined with other dishes to become a special dish, such as bean curd with sauce, eggplant with sauce, sauce bone and crucian carp with sauce, all of which are delicious dishes; Fourth, it is used to mix vegetables, that is, cut the vegetables into shreds, put them on a plate, and then pour sauce on them. After stirring, they taste different. In the countryside, they are simply called mixed cold dishes, which is the most suitable dish for drinking. The fifth is to pickle all kinds of pickles with sauce. After the cucumbers picked from the garden are dried in the sun, they can be thrown into the sauce jar, cut the beans, celery and potatoes into shreds, blanch them and put them in gauze bags. They can be pickled into delicious pickles, as well as pickled squash and perilla leaves. There are many vegetables that can be pickled. When it snows outdoors, the pickles in the sauce jar will be cured. Such pickles are fragrant!

The sauce jar placed outside doesn't need to be moved even for three or nine days, because the sauce won't freeze because of the salt. However, it is still necessary to take good care of it. Because of the removal of the barrier, there are often large livestock in the yard, so it is necessary to prevent the sauce jar from touching, so as not to