Lao Xiucai was reading a book in the front yard, and when he saw Li Ming coming, he waved his hand, but he didn't stand up, and said.

"Li Lang is here!" It's kind of a hello!

Li Ming took out one of the packets of salt-and-pepper melon seeds and handed it to Lao Xiucai, who looked up at Li Ming.

"What is this?"!

"Hehe" Li Ming snorted, "This thing is commonly known as melon seeds, also called sunflowers, or sunflowers, which can be eaten, and have certain benefits for stabilizing emotions and preventing aging!"

"Oh, it's so wonderful, how to eat it"

"Peel it open and eat the flesh inside, with your teeth or nails!"

Li Ming began to eat melon seeds, Lao Xiucai also learned from Li Ming's appearance, and began to be a little clumsy, after dozens of them, Lao Xiucai gradually became proficient, and kept commenting: This thing has an oil fragrance, the taste on the outer shell is slightly salty, and at the same time it tastes like pepper, as for the rest, the old man still can't taste it!

"Do we have a generation of melon seeds here?

"From what I've seen, I've never heard of it, where did you come from?"

"I ran all the way east from Longxi, and I met Hu people in a variety of ways, and all kinds of things emerged in an endless stream, which is really unheard of and unseen! I like to collect all kinds of things, and I end up penniless! What is the pepper that the master is talking about? “

"Pepper is just a condiment, but according to the people in Kyoto, it was brought by the Hu people, and it has a considerable effect on cooking meat to remove the smell and improve the taste of meat.

I heard that it can also be used in medicine, this is the qualification of Chang'an officials, I and other people in the countryside, I have no chance to enjoy, I go to Kyoto, occasionally have the opportunity to try pepper cooking ingredients! “

"Master, do you see if this thing of mine is similar to pepper?" Li Ming heard Lao Xiucai say this, it is estimated that there is no difference from the pepper of later generations, and how this thing was introduced to Middle-earth, time cannot be verified.

But it still has the same effect as Sichuan pepper, and they are all condiments. Li Ming took out a few of his peppercorns and handed them to Lao Xiucai!

Lao Xiucai took it in his hand as if watching, he didn't see pepper, he just ate food made of pepper at home, Lao Xiucai took the pepper and put it under his nose and asked to smell it, and then took a few and put it in his mouth, and tasted it carefully!

Now Lao Xiucai suffered, this pepper, the approximate variety is the big red robe of Hancheng, Shaanxi, the taste is very, very numb, Lao Xiucai began to feel a little numb, and in the end it became more and more numb, and the tongue was a little numb!

"Hemp, hemp! Li Ming thought he was calling his mother, "Li Lang, this thing of yours is similar to pepper, it is a condiment, but the pepper has a spicy taste, and you are pure hemp!" “

"Master, what is the price of pepper in Chang'an?"

"I heard that the main production area of pepper is Tianzhu. Thousands of miles away, through the Western Desert into the territory of the Tang Dynasty. The Silk Road is far away, its price is in Chang'an, it is very expensive, ordinary people, almost inedible, I heard that high-ranking officials in Chang'an have hoarded pepper, Dafa windfall, but this is a rumor, not to be taken seriously"

"Master, isn't Datang suitable for growing pepper?"

"I heard that Tianzhu, the climate is hot, and the customs are very different from Datang, this kind of thing, I'm afraid it is difficult to plant in Datang."

Li Ming knew that pepper could be grown in China, and it was everywhere in later generations, and the price was very expensive, and almost every household in the food industry needed pepper, like cinnamon, spices, pepper, pepper, and chili pepper are all condiments.

But he didn't know that this pepper was made in India, if India could, then the Guangxi generation should also have it, it is estimated that Datang has not found it at this time, otherwise pepper would not be so expensive!

After all, Datang's diet is still relatively vulgar, like those costume TV series performed in later generations, almost all of them are nonsense, how good the ancients ate was, they were all unreliable, after I came here, most of the food I ate was boiled vegetables, oil or animal oil, where is there anything delicious at all!

Li Ming now has a bag of raw melon seeds in his hand, about half a catty, so Li Ming feels that he can plant some sunflowers in his field, but this seed is too few, so he can only plant a batch in the courtyard of his home first, and then expand the planting area after there are a lot of seeds!

At the same time, Li Ming also doesn't know how this sunflower grows on the interface of Datang, because the fertility of the land is different, the difference is more than 1,500 years, the light, the season, these have changed, let's do a pilot first!

I brought a bag of peppercorns, I don't know who brought it, it seems that I naturally like condiments, and there are more than two catties! I want to see if there are pepper seeds in it.

When harvesting peppercorns in the countryside, first pick the ripe peppercorns from the trees, and then dry them in the sun, and wait for the peppercorns to rise and remove the sunspots inside, so that they can be sold to merchants!

Li Ming remembered that the price of peppercorns was about 50 yuan a catty, which was also very expensive! Sometimes, when the drying is not thorough, the peppercorns are still wrapped in sunspots, that is, the fruits of the peppercorns, Li Ming wants to try his luck to see if there are so few!

In the painstaking search, he really found fifty or sixty black seeds, Li Ming was overjoyed, this is the seed that changed the taste of the Tang Dynasty, hehe, the emperor lives up to his wishes, it seems that the second half of his life will start from planting first, there is no way, the people take food as the sky, and the farmers take the land first.

Li Ming told Li Zheng, Xiao Ye and Lao Xiucai that he was born in farming, and he had studied with a master for a few years, and his family felt that he was not the material for reading, so he went home to continue farming!

Such a statement is also passable, Li Ming himself is tall, and he looks good at work, for the paper he brought, Li Ming pushed it to Hu Ren, there were not a few pieces of paper, and all of them were burned after writing, otherwise they would cause trouble if others saw it, as for the pen, Li Ming didn't throw it, this was hidden on his body, as long as he didn't take it out, there would be nothing wrong, Lao Xiucai and Xiao Ye, they told them that the pen was broken and thrown away!

There is also a thermos mug, which needs to be used daily, so leave it well!

After a month of construction, Li Ming's courtyard was finally repaired, similar to the northeast compound, with a wooden fence gate in front, and open space on both sides of the courtyard where vegetables can be grown!

Li Ming deliberately let people use red bricks to isolate the corridor, it looks like an independent garden, the middle corridor is also paved with red bricks, the rainy days in the province are all mud, and the drainage system is also very good.

Outside the gate, deliberately let a few craftsmen take a look at the well, fortunately, the groundwater level is very high, and it will be more than a zhang to see the water, the wellhead is coiled with stone strips, and then dig a pond next to it, want to raise some fish in it, whether this idea can be realized or not, dig it first!

The tables and chairs at home are all ready, the bed is built in accordance with the style required by Li Ming, and it is no different from the modern bed, it is all placed, and the walls inside are painted with white plaster!

Although it is almost at the current level, it is like that, the only regret is that Datang is either lit with candles or oil lamps, and this wall will turn black in a short time, forget it, it really can't work, and then paint it again!

Because it is a newly built house, it is still very humid and cannot be moved in immediately, so Li Ming still has to live in Lao Xiucai's place for the time being, and then officially move in when the water in the house has almost evaporated, and also need to choose an auspicious day of the zodiac, the Tang people are still more particular about this! But the small gardens on both sides can be planted with sunflowers, this can be had!

Li Ming called Xiao Ye and their brothers, turned over the land on both sides with shovels, and then leveled the land, ploughed out ditches with hoes, and calculated the distance between ditches and ditches, this is called row spacing, and then came to the middle sunflower!

Sunflowers, Li Ming soaked in water for a long time, this can ensure the germination rate, and then let Xiao Yege three put the small head down into the ravine, the distance is about one and a half feet, after the planting is completed, the soil on both sides of the gully is closed, the process needs to be careful, otherwise the germination rate cannot be guaranteed!

Two pieces of land, the third brother took less than half a day to finish, and he still needed to invite them to a meal after finishing the work, but Li Ming is still living in Lao Xiucai's place, and the new house has not yet been fired, and the third brother of the Xiao family also knows this situation, besides, the project of building a new house was given to their family, at least they can make two times of money, and doing this work is nothing!

Planting pepper trees is a technical job, and it won't be able to grow if you don't do it, so Li Ming divided more than 50 peppercorns into two parts, planted half of them first, and then looked at the situation! Sichuan peppercorns are not good for germination,

Put the seeds in the water and stir and remove the impurities inside, take out the seeds and soak them in the water, scrub off some of the grease attached to them, and add a little plant ash.

Mix the seeds with wet sand in a ratio of 1:2, then cover them with a straw mat, spray them with water every day and turn them at the right time, and wait until the seeds crack and you are ready to plant. Cultivate in a place with plenty of light and a well-developed drainage system, the soil should not be too large, and the soil should be as fine as possible. In addition, add some organic fertilizer to it

Strip sowing can be used to sow the seeds, and after planting the seeds, cover them with soil, and if necessary, cover them with wheat straw to keep them warm. It takes about a week for the seeds to sprout, at which point only a little topsoil is left, and after a while, the seedlings will grow.

After waiting for more than a week, Li Ming saw that half of the peppercorns came out with about a dozen small seedlings, not so ideal, but not bad, according to the original method, Li Ming planted the remaining seeds, anyway, it is still spring, a week late is nothing! In this week, Li Ming also fetched water from the well to sprinkle water into the melon seed field to prevent the ground from drying out, and in a week's time, the melon seeds also germinated, and the seedling emergence rate was about close to ninety, which was quite good.

In this way, Li Ming's planting industry slowly began! Agriculture is an industry that pays attention to patience, there is no way, everything has its own growth law, and it is really anxious to pull out seedlings to help grow!

So Li Ming is watering every day to observe how his treasures grow, fortunately, there are no pests and diseases in this era, there is no need to catch any insects, and the fertilization of the farmer's manure will be handed over to the Xiao brothers, and their manure will be evenly distributed, which is enough!

Whether it can be promoted on a large scale will have to wait and see! How the sunflowers grow, how the harvest is, peppercorns, it will take at least three years to see the harvest, don't think about it for the time being!