Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 379 Replanting

Xu Xiaoyan squatted down in front of an unidentified shrub, carefully examined its roots, and then cautiously dug around it with an entrenching tool.

After digging about ten centimeters deep, she understood.

The roots of this shrub are extremely deep. As they extend downwards, they encounter layers of gravel and crevices in the rocks, and the roots drill down into those crevices, all the way to very, very deep places.

The temperature of the deeper soil is much lower than that of the surface soil, and the humidity is more stable. Moreover, the roots are deep, so no matter how hot or dry the surface soil is during the day, it has little impact on them.

Needless to say, the roots of the trees are several meters deep, some even penetrating the cracks in the limestone and reaching all the way down to the groundwater level.

They don't live off the top few tens of centimeters of soil; they live off the deep, stable, and cool soil.

And what about the crops she grows? Sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, loofah, taro—how deep can the roots of these crops go? At most, they're no more than half a meter deep.

Within a limited area, the soil temperature of the sinkhole is almost the same as the air temperature.

During the day, the soil is exposed to the sun. Although the temperature drops at night, the soil has a high specific heat capacity, so the heat dissipates slowly. Before it can cool down completely, the sun rises again the next day.

The patch of land she planted was the sunniest spot in the sinkhole, which was hell for the seeds.

After figuring this out, she felt less upset. It seemed that it wasn't that "you can't grow vegetables in sinkholes," but rather that "you haven't found the right way to grow vegetables in sinkholes yet."

After finding the cause, Xu Xiaoyan didn't give herself much time to feel annoyed. She looked up at the sun above the sinkhole. It was just past noon, and the sunlight was scorching.

She took out a watermelon knife from her spatial storage and strode into the small bamboo grove. This time, she was going to cut down thin bamboo, not thick bamboo.

A large patch of those thin bamboos, about the thickness of a little finger and extremely resilient, grew in the southeast corner of the sinkhole.

She specifically chose to cut those straight bamboos without branches. Thin bamboo is much easier to cut than thick bamboo. When the knife fell, it broke with a "snap," and clear sap seeped out from the broken end, carrying a fresh bamboo fragrance.

Xu Xiaoyan quickly chopped up a large bundle, tied it tightly with rope, and carried it on her shoulder back home.

Although thin bamboo is not heavy, it is very long. When carrying it on your shoulder, with one end in front and the other behind, you have to be careful not to poke a tree or a rock.

She carried the thin bamboo to the side of the bamboo shed, stacked it against the wall, and then made two more trips, cutting down three large bundles. She figured that was enough before stopping.

Xu Xiaoyan was exhausted. She went back to her room, turned on the electric fan, took water from her spatial storage, washed up quickly, and then lay down on the bed. The cool silk mat against her sweaty back felt wonderfully comfortable.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep almost instantly, too exhausted to even turn over.

She didn't know how long she had slept, but she was woken up by hunger. When she opened her eyes and looked around, it was already dark.

Xu Xiaoyan picked up her watch and glanced at it. The sun had already set. She had slept for nearly five hours. Although her muscles were still a little sore, she had recovered most of her energy.

Her stomach was rumbling, so she sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, slipped on her slippers, walked under the bamboo shed, and took out three steamed buns from her spatial storage.

The steamed buns were hot; they were from the batch she had steamed before storing them in her space. They were filled with pork and cabbage, and the dough was white and soft. When you took a bite, the juice from the meat filling would seep out.

She stood under the bamboo shed, facing the sinkhole that was beginning to darken, eating her steamed buns bite by bite, completely satisfied.

The light inside the sinkhole was changing rapidly; the treetops at the top of the cliff were still bathed in a golden afterglow, but the bottom of the sinkhole had already darkened.

When she finished her third steamed bun, only a small patch of sky above the sinkhole was still lit. She drank a couple more sips of water, then rolled up her sleeves and prepared to get to work.

That's right, Xu Xiaoyan planned to plant at night. The high temperature during the day is the biggest obstacle to seed germination, so she would avoid planting during the day.

The temperature in the sinkhole at night is nearly ten degrees lower than during the day, and the temperature of the soil also drops accordingly.

Although it's not as cool as the deep soil, it's still much better than the daytime temperature that could simmer seeds.

Furthermore, planting at night has another advantage: water evaporates more slowly, and the water poured in won't evaporate in just a few hours.

The longer the soil remains moist, the more time the seeds have to absorb water, swell, break through their shells, and take root.

This time, she made two preparations.

The first method involved utilizing the existing, thriving trees in the sinkhole. The fact that these trees could survive in such high temperatures indicates that their root systems created a relatively suitable microenvironment.

The tree canopy provides shade, lowering the ground temperature; the deep root system improves soil structure; and the decomposition of fallen leaves increases soil organic matter.

She chose a tall tree as her starting point. The tree was about as thick as two people could hug, with a huge canopy and soft soil.

Xu Xiaoyan squatted down, walked around the tree trunk, and selected a circular area about one meter away from the tree trunk within the canopy projection range.

She gently loosened the soil with an entrenching tool, not daring to dig too deep for fear of damaging the tree's roots. She only loosened the top ten centimeters of soil and picked out the pebbles and weeds.

Then she buried sweet potato chunks and potato chunks alternately in the soil, planting fourteen or fifteen patches under each tree, and watered them thoroughly.

She found thirty large trees and repeated the above operation. These trees were distributed in different locations at the bottom of the pit, some near the cliff, some in the center of the pit, and some in the more humid area in the northwest corner.

She spread them out, essentially conducting thirty different small-scale environmental experiments, so that she could see which ones grew best and determine which location in the sinkhole was most suitable for planting.

The second approach was to transform the vacant land. The problem with this vacant land was that it lacked shade and the soil temperature was too high, so she created "shade" artificially.

She first rummaged through her storage space and took out the seed packaging bags, examining them one by one.

I picked out all the seeds from the bag that were labeled "heat resistant", "high temperature resistant", "suitable growth temperature 20-35 degrees", or "temperature range exceeding 35 degrees".

Water spinach is heat and humidity resistant, and it can still grow well at temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius.

The hotter it is, the more loofahs will form, as long as there is enough water.

Bitter melon thrives in warm, heat-tolerant conditions and germinates quickly at temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius.

Winter melon is highly heat-resistant and has a well-developed root system that can absorb deep water.

Chili peppers prefer warm temperatures and are not cold-hardy; they grow best at around 30 degrees Celsius.

Eggplants are similar to chili peppers; they produce more fruit in hot weather.

Cowpeas are heat- and drought-resistant, and can grow normally at temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees Celsius.

Amaranth grows more vigorously in the hot summer, and temperatures in the thirties are its prime time.

She arranged the seeds into different categories, leaving enough space for each category.