They ate lunch at Old Ma's Place. There was no stewed fish that day. Instead, they had latiaozi with mutton stir-fried with dried chili peppers and last year's leftover tomato sauce, along with blanched chives and little Chinese cabbage. The reds and greens alone were enough to whet anyone's appetite.
The chives and little Chinese cabbage had all come from the plot in the stable yard. Old Ma's Place had been built by the team. Although Uncle Lao Luo had managed it before, back when it belonged to the Production Team, the land inside the stable compound could not be touched.
After Li Long bought Old Ma's Place, he let Uncle Lao Luo decide what to do with it. Uncle Lao Luo had long wanted a vegetable plot, so he converted one of the vacant patches. He turned the soil, enclosed it with a waist-high wall, raked it into small beds, and applied well-rotted manure from the stable. The vegetables grew beautifully-the little Chinese cabbage leaves were a deep green.
On top of that, Li Long and the others had installed a hand pump there, making water readily available. From spring to autumn, the plot produced more vegetables than they could eat, leaving enough to make sauces, dry, and pickle.
Once the old men moved in, the vegetable plot was put to even better use. All of them were skilled vegetable growers, even Yang Laoliu, who had taken it up later in life. With plenty of fertilizer available as well, their plot ranked among the best in the team.
The dried chili peppers had been dried the previous year and stored for a year. Once the weather warmed that spring, they had been put out in the blazing sun again to keep them from getting damp or infested with bugs.