Her Cultivation Diary
Chapter 573 - Chapter 573 573. One catty and postage_1

Chapter 573: 573. One catty and postage_1 Chapter 573: 573. One catty and postage_1 “Mushrooms?”

Song Tan thought for a moment: “Shiitake mushrooms?”

“No.” Professor Song chuckled dismissively: “There are too many shiitake growers, it’s hard for the price to–” He wanted to say it was hard for the price to increase, but thinking of the forty-pound fish, he had nothing more to say.

At this moment, he could only nod again: “Right, shiitake mushrooms. Keep more mushroom logs in the forest. With the climate conditions in spring, summer, and fall, they’ll basically grow naturally as genuine forest mushrooms without any management.”

“Of course, the yield can’t compare to large-scale cultivation, but when dried, they’re also resistant to storage and transportation.”

Yan Ran had already opened her phone: “The yield per mu for cardamom can reach about 200 pounds of dried fruit, and I checked that a spice packet uses only about 5 grams. 200 pounds… Sss! That’s twenty thousand spice packets!”

A mu should be enough to sell for a year, right?

But who plants just one mu of fruit trees? Just for family consumption?

Seventh Uncle was contemplative, not forgetting to instruct: “Tantan, grow more ginger, too! You can’t do without it for spice packets, and later I can make dried ginger tea with it!”

This year our family planted some too, just a small plot of land the size of a palm, and although we haven’t harvested the ginger yet, it’s definitely not going to last long when we do.

This stuff is like garlic and green onions; you can never do without it.

Seventh Uncle was interested in anything that could be used in cooking:

“If you can’t sell it, ask Doctor Guo. Those in Chinese medicine can’t do without dried ginger slices, right! And fresh ginger goes for a good price, too.”

He was opening up new ideas, and at that moment, the thoughts on how to make money came one after another! Listening to all this made Song Tan feel incredibly elated, but then instantly dejected again:

“Still, we’re short of hands…”

Zhang Yanping had also opened her phone, rapidly crunching numbers: “Twenty thousand packets? That should be able to sell for three months? I’ll have to see how a tea egg spice packet sells in the market before deciding exactly how much to plant.”

As she spoke, she remembered something: “Oh dear, I forgot to greet those people Professor Song introduced me to, to talk about prices and send a few more pounds our way…”

Then she hurriedly made a phone call.

…

South City.

Wa Jun rode back on his old, clattering motorcycle, his wife, with a big belly, was cooking, seeing him drenched in sweat she sighed helplessly:

“Don’t go out tomorrow, it’s too hot, it’s a suffering.”

Wa Jun was also helpless: “What else can we do if I don’t go out? In summer, people eat barbecue and lobsters; the spices are used up the fastest. We must sell the Sichuan pepper we have grown. Otherwise, come fall, there will be new harvest.”

On the other hand, consumers nowadays just aren’t discerning when it comes to what they eat!

When he went to the Seed Association, the one held by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences for new breed cultivation, he tasted the Sichuan pepper and knew it was good. After inquiring, he discovered it was also suitable to grow in his area, hesitated for a night, and applied for planting guidance the next day!

After a year of hard work, with all his savings invested, such a fine product was distressingly without a market!

Well, not entirely without a market, there was an old-brand hot pot restaurant, to which he sold door-to-door. After the boss personally tasted his Sichuan pepper, he was convinced.

The problem was that what makes an old-brand old is that they do not franchise or chain, they only have one store! Even if they’re busy every day, their capacity is only so much.

Sichuan pepper produces around 300 pounds per mu, and with his attentive care, his family’s ten mu yielded just over 3000 pounds! But he never imagined it would be difficult to sell due to the high price, as many wouldn’t even taste it!

It was an owner of a barbecue restaurant who finally told him:

“Your Sichuan pepper has a really strong flavor! It’s very good! There’s just one thing, it’s expensive… Look at the Sichuan pepper I buy in the market, 18 per pound, and our barbecue is very honest, we use only good quality stuff, the quality is quite nice, right?”

“But yours is 30… See, it’s just so expensive! Barbecue has to consider costs too!”

Another issue, which he only understood after chatting with the hot pot restaurant boss, was:

The hotpot restaurant owner praised the flavor of his Sichuan peppers, saying they were very potent, so when making hotpot, he had to readjust the ratio to get a better taste…

Wa Jun understood as soon as he thought about it.

Most of the popular barbecue and hotpot restaurants have their own seasoning mixes, and his Sichuan peppers were not only expensive but also strong in flavor, which means that after incorporating them, it was best to adjust the overall mix; otherwise, some customers who preferred the old taste might complain…

But if the business was good, it meant that the flavor was accepted, recognized, and even became a habit–there was no need to adjust then!

As for barbecue restaurants with poor business… if their business was already bad, they would be even less willing to spend money and would opt for cheaper barbecue ingredients instead.

Going back and forth like this, Wa Jun was also getting numb to it.

Before he started the planting, he did think about the sales issue and even went to survey the market, but he never expected it to be for such a reason!

At this moment, he had already made up his mind, “I plan to go to Shan City tomorrow, people there like spicy food and hotpot, I’ll go promote it there!”

Don’t rush, don’t rush… Wa Jun tried to calm himself down, but he didn’t hear his wife speak.

When he looked over again, he saw that his wife had also started to hesitate, “My due date is within this half month, and if you’re leaving… there’s no one else at home, my parents aren’t here either. I’m a little worried.”

On one hand, there was the urgent need to clear the inventory of Sichuan peppers, and on the other, his wife.

Giving birth, confinement, taking care of the child…

Wa Jun broke out in a cold sweat on the spot.

He clenched his teeth, “Alright, if it comes to it, I can go after you have the baby and finish your confinement. It just so happens that there’s work to do in the fields recently.”

His wife hesitated for a moment–if everything went well, she wouldn’t be out of confinement until September or October, but the harvest period for this year’s Sichuan peppers was at the end of August!

This was also the reason Wa Jun was so anxious–he still had a thousand pounds in the stock!

The couple had dinner without a taste for it.

As usual, they went out for a stroll, and as they walked, the wife began to daydream while staring at the pond, then tears streamed down her face:

“I really want to eat crawfish… Wa Jun, if the Sichuan peppers still can’t be sold, you don’t have to farm anymore, sell crawfish instead! You used to make such delicious crawfish… I really want to eat it, boo hoo hoo…”

Wa Jun: …

His father was a crawfish seller; every summer, from noon until night, clients swarmed like clouds every night, and after graduation, Wa Jun worked with him for a few years, made a lot of money, but was worn out like a dog.

When they were matchmaking, his wife even asked him if he had taken off seven or eight years from his ID card’s age…

When Wa Jun got home and smelled the faint scent of barbecue on him while taking a shower, he was determined to change his profession!

Now, his parents were selling barbecue crawfish in the city and were so busy they basically had no free time.

He was growing Sichuan peppers in the fields; he had time on his hands, but the money earned from selling barbecue had all gone into it, and he still hadn’t reconciled with his family after their quarrel…

At this moment, he couldn’t speak either.

And at that moment, his phone rang, it was Professor Song whom he met at a previous Seed Association meeting.

After hanging up, he sighed–a kind gesture from Professor Song, even though he had been just a layman asking a few questions, but he still left his phone number and told him to call if he had any problems…

Now, with nearly two years of planting experience, he could not have expected Professor Song to still remember this concern…

Just then, he had called and even transferred money after asking if there were any samples to send over…

Wa Jun checked his phone and couldn’t help but cry and laugh:

The transfer was for 50 yuan, with the memo reading “For one pound and the postage”.