Super Orchard

Chapter 297 Planting Cantaloupe

Under the intense busyness of many employees in the orchard, the last load of mangoes has been shipped out, and the whole mango picking work is over at this time.

Let the employees who have been tired for several days rest first, and Shen Yangguang continues to think about what to plant in the watermelon field in the eastern orchard.

Last year, a thousand acres of watermelons were planted there. When the watermelons mature, the production and sales are very good. However, the current fruit shops in Jinquan Orchard are relatively limited, only more than 200, and it is impossible to sell these hundreds in a short time. Thousands of catties of watermelons are sold.

Thanks to the thick watermelon rind, which is resistant to storage, these large fruits can be sold while they are still fresh.

Before the fruit store expands, Shen Yangguang plans to reduce the area of ​​watermelon planting this year, and expand the scale of watermelon planting when he continues to open new fruit stores in the future.

Because watermelon will expand at any time, it is obviously not suitable to plant perennial fruits here, and melon, which is also an annual herbaceous plant like watermelon, appeared in Shen Yangguang's mind.

Cantaloupe is also called muskmelon. It not only tastes very sweet, but also smells very fragrant, so it is called cantaloupe. This kind of melon and fruit tastes crisp and sweet, refreshing and delicious. It is very popular in Jinquan Village.

For the cultivation of cantaloupe, Shen Yangguang plans to plant the same area as the watermelon, each with [-] mu. Such a large area is enough to produce melons and fruits that meet the needs of fruit shops.

Cantaloupe is not a melon and fruit native to my country, but is produced in the tropical desert area of ​​Africa. It was introduced to China along with watermelon during the Northern Wei Dynasty.

At the beginning, cantaloupe was not valued by the people, and it did not develop a large scale in the following hundreds of years. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that cantaloupe was widely planted in my country. Currently, it is commonly cultivated in various parts of our country.

Like watermelon, cantaloupe is also a summer melon and fruit. It not only tastes fragrant and sweet, but also has a nutritional value comparable to that of watermelon.

In the flesh of cantaloupe, except that the content of water and protein is lower than that of watermelon, other nutrients are not less than watermelon, and the aromatic substances, minerals, sugar and vitamins contained in cantaloupe are significantly higher than watermelon.

Because cantaloupe is rich in nutrients, eating more is beneficial to the activities of the human heart, liver and intestinal system, and promotes endocrine and hematopoietic functions. Therefore, ancient Chinese medicine has confirmed that cantaloupe has the remarkable effect of "relieving summer heat, relieving polydipsia, and diuresis".

In addition, the vitamins and potassium contained in cantaloupe have a good effect on skin beauty, and the "cucurbitacin" contained in it has a certain anti-cancer effect, which can prevent the spread of cancer cells, and also has the effect of antitussive and expectorant. effect.

Cantaloupe contains a lot of carbohydrates and citric acid, etc., and is full of water, which can quench thirst, relieve summer heat and clear heat. The invertase in it can convert insoluble protein into soluble protein, which can help some patients with kidney disease absorb nutrients.

In addition to the pulp, the pedicle of cantaloupe can protect the liver and alleviate chronic liver damage. The seeds also have the effect of killing roundworms and filarial worms. Therefore, when eating cantaloupe, you can eat the pedicle and the seeds together.

In addition to raw food, cantaloupe, a fruit that looks a bit like pumpkin and other vegetables, can also be cooked, such as stir-fried cantaloupe, cantaloupe fried chicken, cantaloupe cup, etc., are excellent summer delicacies.

Shen Yangguang had eaten these dishes made by his parents when he was a child, and his memory is still fresh until now. They are not only sweet and delicious, but also relieve the heat, so he can't wait to try cooking them himself when the melons are ripe.

Two days later, the tired employees returned to work in the orchard after their break. At this time, truckloads of cantaloupe seedlings and watermelon seedlings were also transported to the field next to the orchard. Yang Xiaomi began to take hundreds of employees to plant these two Plant melons and fruits.

At this time, the employees of the internal and external business department of Jinquan Orchard were all gathered together and divided into two parts by Yang Xiaomi, one part was responsible for planting watermelons, and the other part was responsible for planting cantaloupe.

Generally speaking, the planting time of cantaloupe is relatively early, around February and March. It is already May, which seems very late, but Shen Yangguang is not worried about this. Planting too late will cause the melons to fail to ripen.

Cantaloupe and watermelon are relatively low species, but there are two types: dwarf type and creeping type. The dwarf type grows alone like a dwarf tree, while the creeping type grows on the ground like a watermelon.

Among them, the planting density of dwarf melons is very high, and four to five thousand trees can be planted per acre, while the planting density of vine melons needs to have enough space to grow prostrate, so the planting density is much lower, and only about one thousand can be planted per acre. Five hundred trees.

These two types of cantaloupe have their own advantages. For example, the planting density of dwarf cantaloupe is high, and the yield per mu is naturally high. Although the planting density of creeping cantaloupe is small, it can be directly placed on the seedlings to grow on the ground. There is no need to set up a small bracket to prevent the melon seedlings from lodging, which saves a lot of time and effort.

Shen Yangguang thought for a while, and finally decided to choose vine-type melons, not because he wanted to reduce his workload, but because there are too few fruit shops now. If five hundred acres of dwarf melons are planted, the yield It won't be sold out for a while, so it's better to save some effort to plant vine-type melons.

As for the watermelons planted on the other half of the land, Shen Yangguang still purchased last year's sandy variety. Although the yield was lower than that of ordinary watermelons, they were delicious.

Because the watermelon is too big, if it grows up like a dwarf melon, no matter how many supports are erected, it is difficult to ensure that the fruit will fall off the melon seedlings. Therefore, this kind of watermelon only has a vine type, which saves sun exposure Then go to the brain to choose.

In the case of large-scale planting of fruit in the eastern orchard, Shen Yangguang does not need every seedling to be fed with golden airflow, but directly dilutes the golden airflow into the river water and waters it directly.

Not to mention that his own airflow is not enough at all, if he touches these hundreds of thousands of seedlings one by one, Shen Yangguang will probably be exhausted and busy.

In the strawberry greenhouse diagonally opposite to the watermelon field, these strawberries have been completely closed and have entered the fruiting period, but they still need to be watered frequently.

Whenever the strawberries are watered, Shen Yangguang will come to watch, and then secretly flow the golden air into the water and spray them on the thousand acres of strawberries. The fruit produced must be extraordinary, the taste will be much better, and the price will naturally be more expensive.

(End of this chapter)