College graduate returns to his hometown in Ziyun, Guizhou to set up a vegetable garden

In the photo, Wei Gang is pruning eggplant branches.

On March 19, in Wei Gang's vegetable garden in Longtou Village, Huohua Township, Ziyun Autonomous County, more than 10 villagers were busy planting eggplant seedlings, some covering film, some making holes, some planting, and some covering the soil...

Wei Gang, 36 this year, graduated from Anshun University in 2000 with a major in animal husbandry and aquaculture. After graduation, he could not find a stable job and went to cities in Hubei and Guangdong to work hard for many years. In 2013, Huohua Township began to develop the vegetable industry and was listed as a provincial-level demonstration park. Wei Gang noticed that many entrepreneurs were coming to his hometown to develop vegetable gardens, and he wanted to give it a try himself.

That same year, Wei Gang invested all of his savings of more than 200,000 yuan accumulated over many years into a vegetable garden base, and with policy support, transferred 50 mu of land to begin developing his own planting business.

While the workers were planting eggplant seedlings, Wei Gang was nearby in another plot pruning eggplant branches with scissors. The eggplant seedlings he was pruning were old eggplant branches that had borne fruit for a year last year, and quite a few dried eggplants were still hanging on the branches.

"The eggplants hanging on the branches bore fruit last winter. After being frozen by frost and snow, they are no longer fresh, but they are still barely edible." Speaking of the tricks of growing vegetables, Wei Gang talked with great relish: "The eggplant branches I prune are all grafted. In the vegetable business, if you want the vegetables you grow to fetch a good price, being early and off-season is the key.

"Fruit-bearing vegetables such as eggplants and small gourds can all be grafted." Wei Gang explained that eggplant seedlings grown from eggplant seeds have roots that cannot withstand disease, and their roots and stems are not well developed, so a kind of rootstock seedling with well-developed roots is cultivated. When the eggplant seedlings and the rootstock seedlings are the same size, the eggplant seedlings are grafted onto the rootstock seedlings. However, in the process of cultivating rootstock seedlings and grafting eggplant seedlings, there is a relatively high level of technical expertise involved. The grafted eggplant seedlings he planted were all purchased from Guangxi, with a survival rate of more than 95%.

Luo Mabu, a villager from Longtou Village who was planting eggplant seedlings in the field, said that for people their age, being able to earn 60 yuan a day near home is already very good, and having such a vegetable garden in the village makes them feel very lucky.

To motivate the workers' enthusiasm, Wei Gang adopted a guaranteed minimum wage of 60 yuan a day, with pay raises based on results, that is, base pay plus efficiency. This can both increase the workers' motivation and encourage them to work more carefully. "From February to September each year, there are no fewer than 10 workers in the vegetable garden each day, and at the busiest times more than 50 people a day." Wei Gang said with a smile that developing a vegetable garden in his hometown not only let him see hope, but also helped some villagers escape poverty.

"No matter what you do, as long as you have confidence, there will always be a time when you succeed. The first year of growing vegetables I lost money, the second year I roughly broke even, and last year I planted 90 mu of vegetables and made a net profit of 200,000 yuan, which is not bad; this year I transferred an additional 40 mu of land, for a total of 130 mu, and I plan to expand the scale of planting year by year." Speaking of his plans for the future, Wei Gang was full of confidence.