On June 8, I wrote an article titled "Fruit Prices Drop! Fall! Fall! The "floor price" of cold storage fruits, watermelons fell below 1.5 yuan", reflecting the price reduction of fruits this year.
The article wrote, "Kirin watermelon is 1.38 yuan a catty, and rock sugar watermelon is 1.48 yuan a catty."
Only 10 days have passed, and now the price of watermelons has collapsed a lot, and today I see that most of the watermelons on the street are 1 yuan, and some vendors only sell 0.8 yuan or 0.7 yuan a catty.
Only the price of Meidu rock sugar melon and Meidu seedless melon in the supermarket is still strong, costing 1.58 yuan a catty.
0.8 yuan a catty, if I'm not mistaken, that's about the price of ten years ago.
I remember in those years, I always bought ten watermelons when they were on the market in large quantities, and it cost about 100 yuan. Put it at home, as a reserve fruit, adults and children, to eat for a long time.
Speaking of which, watermelon is my favorite fruit in summer, and there is no one. I remember when I was a child, my mother used to hang watermelons in the well, and then fish them out of the water after half a day or overnight, which was cold and sweet.
Yesterday after work, I bought a watermelon in a roadside fruit cart. Although it is a small pick, there are 15 catties, and it only costs 12 yuan.
The melon dealer said that he had picked it from the ground in the morning - it was true, the guati were still tender. When I went back and cut it, the melon was red and rustling. When you take a bite, the juice is flowing, sweet and fresh.
This year's watermelon is so cheap, the people who eat melons laugh haha! I laugh too, haha!
But what about melon farmers?
Did they make money this year? Or more so, do they have a discount this year?
My suspicions are justified.
Yesterday, I was picking melons and chatting with melon dealers. When I asked him where he got the melon, he said it was from Hunan.
I asked him what he was buying, and he smiled and said:
"Anyway, it's less than 8 cents. I have to pay for my car, gas, and tolls across the bridge, and I have to pay for labor, and I have to sell them here, and I always have to earn two, don't you say? ”
I understand that money is the most sensitive, and it is understandable that he doesn't want others to know.
I speculate that the price at which the melon seller buys it is estimated to be five or six dimes. It couldn't be any higher. After all, in addition to the cost, he always has to make some money to do it, who will do things that lose money and make money!
I used to be a melon farmer too. Or to be more precise, I'm the child of a melon farmer, and my family used to grow watermelons.
What I do know is that watermelon seeds cannot be left and must be bought every year.
I remember that a watermelon seed was 5 cents back then, and if you directly buy melon seedlings raised by others and planted in a nutrient bowl, it is 5 dimes a seed.
Planting watermelons is particularly "wasteland", the land that has been planted with watermelons in the first year can not be planted again in the second year, and must be planted on different land.
Throughout the growth period of watermelons, a large amount of fertilizer should be applied, including chemical fertilizers and farm fertilizers.
Because I was studying at the time, I didn't really participate in much work. By impression, I remember to apply the fertilizer at least three times:
One is to apply foot fertilizer when planting seedlings, the other is to apply compound fertilizer during the rapid growth of vines, and the third is to apply enough fertilizer during the fruiting period.
Watermelons grow vigorously and have a great demand for water. My dad usually watered it once every two days.
Sometimes when there is a drought, you have to spend money to buy water from the reservoir, and the water released from the reservoir is charged by the hour.
Water from the reservoir flows down the ditch to the pond, from which my dad pumps water for watermelons.
Watermelons are also pesticide - we have to eat them ourselves. If you don't fight, the insects will eat the watermelon vine and have nothing left in two or three days.
And you have to take the medicine several times, because the insects come in waves, and the medicine has to be shot again and again.
Watermelons generally only have one or two main vines, and the rest should be pinched off so as not to disperse the nutrients.
When it comes to watermelons, only one or two melons are left on a watermelon vine, and the rest must be pinched off. Because there are more watermelons, they don't grow much.
When harvesting melons, I am most afraid of heavy rain for several days, and then the sun will come out again.
Because of this, watermelons will crack one by one, especially thin-skinned watermelons.
As soon as the watermelon cracks and opens, the watermelon is finished, except for feeding the pigs, it will only rot.
Looking at the cracked watermelons in the field, and looking at my dad's sad expression, I really wanted to cry - all the hard work of the months was in vain.
We have to take advantage of the sunny weather to quickly pick the watermelon, and be careful when picking the melon, if you hit the melon seller, you will not accept it.
Often, our sisters would pick a few of them, and my dad and my mom would pick them up one by one.
At that time, there will be melon sellers who come to collect watermelons.
After some haggling, a room of watermelons was exchanged for a thin stack of bills.
The good melons and big melons are all sold, and some of the crooked or too small ones are left for us to eat.
Now, seeing watermelons so cheap, as a consumer, of course I'm happy, who wouldn't want to buy more for less?
But what about melon farmers?
Did they shed tears of sadness like I did back then?
In a trance, I saw my father's figure again under the scorching sun:
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