Wild vegetables in spring

Wild vegetables in spring

Text/Xue Liquan

Spring comes quietly. After a winter's dormancy, the earth happily opens its sleepy eyes. Moistened by the spring rain, the wheat seedlings turn green, the trees sprout fresh, and the wild vegetables and grass in the field are scrambling to stick out their heads and paint the earth green. As far as you can see, there is a vibrant scene everywhere.

When I was a child, every year after the Spring Festival, my family would buy back two newly weaned piglets. I loved the piglets from the bottom of my heart. At this time, my mother would strike while the iron is hot and encourage me to say, "If you like it, just dig wild vegetables and feed it every day, and it will grow up soon." I am naturally very happy with the task assigned by my mother. I changed my habit of being lazy in bed. Every day at dawn, I rolled over and got up, carrying a basket to dig wild vegetables in the field.

In the early spring, the spring is chilly, which is the season when the grass looks close but there is nothing. I carefully searched for wild vegetables in the grass and the shelter of Chaoyang. The wild vegetables in early spring, such as shepherd's purse and bitter vegetables, which grew in these warm environments have been drilled out of the ground, and I can dig one or two in half a day. Back home, the mother chopped up the wild vegetables and mixed them with feed to feed the piglets. The piglets really grew quickly after eating such delicious fresh wild vegetables. As the piglet grows up, its food intake is also increasing. In addition, the freshness has passed, and the potherb plucking has not become as beautiful as originally imagined, and it has become a task that has to be completed.

With the warming weather, there are more and more varieties of wild vegetables suitable for pigs. Seven or seven hairs that grow in the field have wide leaves and are covered with burrs around them. Be very careful when gouging it out, otherwise the burrs will easily prick your hands. Seven or seven hairs also have the effect of stopping bleeding and reducing swelling. Occasionally, there are bleeding wounds. Rub and squeeze the seven or seven hairs, and the juice will drip into the wound, and the bleeding will stop immediately, which is very miraculous. Grey vegetables grow in fields, roadsides and near houses, and the stems are upright and thick, with edges and green or purple; Pink grows by the river and in humid areas. The broad leaves are red and green, with big black spots in the middle. Those with the same shape and no black spots in the middle of the leaves are toxic and inedible to pigs. Crouching donkeys grow in low-lying areas with flat and wide leaves, which is a good wild vegetable for pigs to eat; Mazar-e (Portulaca oleracea) is full of meat, with prostrate stems, scattered on the ground, pale green or dark red branches and flat and thick leaves; Yincai leaves are big and fat, with green color, and most of them grow on fertile land; Mountain vegetables grow in mountains and cliffs, and like to grow in clusters. It is also a variety that people like to eat. Gouqi Tou is the tender head of wild Lycium barbarum in spring, which grows on the edge of the garden or on the ridge ...

There are more than a dozen kinds of wild vegetables eaten by pigs in spring, but because every family raises pigs, everyone can dig wild vegetables, and there are no wild vegetables to dig around the village. In the distant ravines, fields, ridges, and the bottom of the dry reservoir, I have left my wild vegetables everywhere.

in order to get more wild vegetables, sometimes you have to take some risks. My hometown is a small mountain village. There are ravines around the village, and the mountain vegetables like to grow on the cliffs. Because of the dangerous terrain, most people can't reach them, and the mountain vegetables grow luxuriantly and gratifying. Whenever I see it, I will be like the spider-man who picks mountain products in the deep mountains, but he has a rope tied to his waist. I am climbing branches with my hands and hanging baskets on my belt, facing the same risk of falling off the abyss. When I put a big mound of mountain vegetables on the cliff,

My primary school is in the village. I remember that at noon in the second grade of primary school, I used my lunch break for more than an hour, carrying a basket alone, and quickly came to a wheat field bordering the neighboring village. At that time, it was still the production team period, and it was not allowed to dig wild vegetables in the wheat field. Usually, there were people watching the slope. At noon that day, maybe the slope watcher went home for dinner, and the wheat field was unattended. The more I went into the wheat field, the more excited I became. The ridge was covered with tender and fat gray vegetables, and the number was unprecedented. I spat the gray vegetables into the basket at a very fast speed. When the basket was almost full of gray vegetables, I suddenly heard someone shouting, "Put the basket down!" " I suddenly looked up and saw a middle-aged man standing only two or three meters away from me, showing lost face's face, combative. I picked up the basket and ran, and the middle-aged man ran after me. I rushed home along the field and the ridge, always keeping a distance of five to ten meters from the middle-aged man. The wheat field was two or three miles away from our village. I was exhausted and barely ran to the village entrance, and the middle-aged man stopped chasing. At this time, I looked at the basket, and most of the gray vegetables inside were knocked off during the running, leaving only a little bottom of the basket, which made me feel distressed. Fortunately, I was not caught by a middle-aged man, so as not to delay the afternoon class.

I was born in the 196s, and I was lucky enough to escape the three-year period of natural disasters. When I was young, I seldom ate wild vegetables at home, but when I dug wild vegetables in spring, I often had the experience of eating wild vegetables raw, which was full of fun to recall.

in spring, I like to eat garlic (wild garlic). The stems and leaves of garlic are slender and hollow, triangular or semi-cylindrical, and the roots are spherical, and most of them grow in pieces. Dig out the garlic at the bottom with a shovel and rinse it in the running water of a small river. The garlic is eaten with the stems and leaves, which has the taste of new garlic. Drip stick (Maoya) is also a kind of treasure that you like to eat in spring. It is just a tender tip of thatch. Take it out, peel off several layers of foreskins wrapped outside, take out the white and tender inner core like cotton tidbits, and chew it directly in your mouth. It tastes sweet and delicious. The time for eating the drip stick is very short. After the first day or two, the inner core becomes hard and chews like forage grass, losing its edible value. Sloppy paws grow on hillsides or thatched roofs, resembling the "fleshy" ornamental bonsai at present. The leaves are juicy and fleshy, and it feels sour and sweet when chewed in the mouth, which is refreshing and delicious. I don't know what's the name of the book. Its roots are as thick as fingers. The earth has just thawed, and the chicken has sprouted gray buds. At this time, its taste is the best. Dig out the roots with a shovel, peel off the thick epidermis, expose the inner lining like radish pulp, and take a bite. It is crisp, sweet and refreshing. It is a delicious spring that will never be forgotten.

at the age of 19, I went out to study and left my hometown, and I also bid farewell to the wild vegetables in my hometown for a long time. Until many years later, I have settled down in the city. Every spring, I am still excited to see green wild vegetables growing in the squares, parks and buildings in the city, and I often have the urge to gouge them out.

My lover is from my hometown. When I was a child, I had a similar life experience, perhaps it was a nostalgic complex, perhaps it was a nature of advocating nature. My lover loved digging wild vegetables. With the expansion of the city, there are no fields around the city. Every early spring, my lover always drags me to the outer suburbs more than 3 kilometers away to dig vegetables. That place is a field as far as the eye can see, with green mountains and green waters, and there is no environmental pollution. The first crop of shepherd's purse, which has been drilled out of the ground soon, is scattered in the fields and slopes. I always look east and west, enjoying the natural scenery in spring, and the shepherd's purse is second. My lover, on the other hand, is different from me. She concentrates on gouging around, which is extremely efficient, and she gains a lot in half a day. When I get home, I choose to wash shepherd's purse. I like shepherd's purse tofu best, while my lover likes shepherd's purse pork dumplings. Half a day's harvest can always kill two birds with one stone, each needs his own food and enjoys the gift from spring.

when the weather gets warmer, my lover starts to pinch the mountain vegetables, and the first crop of the mountain vegetables is fresh, tender and fragrant. After returning home, blanch the selected wild vegetables in boiling water, then soak them in cold water, drain the water, cut them into fine powder, add the cooked peanuts and bean paste and mix well. This wild vegetable is my mother's favorite. Every spring, the wild vegetables flow backwards in our house and flow back to the table of rural mothers from our small home in the city.

Things have changed, and wild vegetables have sprouted silently on the earth as always. In the famine years in history, every spring, green and yellow crops are not picked up, and wild vegetables become people's hope of saving lives; In a good year, it will become a delicious food for many livestock and poultry to gain weight; Nowadays, life is rich, and wild vegetables are still a rarity on people's table. Eating them makes them healthy and affectionate.

when winter goes and spring comes, the quality of wild vegetables is always the same. Whenever spring comes back to the earth, I will feel infinite awe when I look at the spring wild vegetables sprouting everywhere ...

About the author: Xue Liquan, a native of Huangdao District, Qingdao, is a member of Qingdao Writers Association. He likes to record his life in words, and he also likes traveling, photography and hiking. He has published many essays in Qilu Evening News, Qilu Evening News, Qilu Yidian, Qingdao Daily and Qingdao Evening News.

Yidianhao Liangli Coast