Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 39. Soil Testing with pH Test Strips
For now, I’ll consider whether I need to go to Grandma Kaen’s place or not.
“Anyway, it’s just to try things out, so if I could get just a little, even some old seeds would make me happy. I’d be happy with mustard greens, radish, turnip, or cabbage, if you have any.”
I asked Dawn-san for these.
I left out carrots and lettuce because I thought since the seeds have a short lifespan it might be a problem if it’s older seeds.
“Oh, leave it to me!”
His reply was reassuring.
“I’ll bring them out.”
Hmm? I guess Milia-san is the one doing the actual work.
Um,
“How much do I owe you?”
I asked, and Milia-san smacked her knee.
Come to think of it, Milia-san’s knees seem to be doing well now. Though, considering Dawn-san’s back and all, maybe it’s working a bit too well.
“Do you think I’ll take it?”
From her tone, I could tell she probably wouldn’t accept money.
I don’t need a lot. It’s just a trial, I try my best to emphasize that.
Milia-san nodded, saying, “Got it, got it,” but I feel like she doesn’t really understand.
After finishing today’s work, as I was about to leave, Milia-san, smiling, handed me some seeds.
It seems she adjusted the amount, but there are quite a few different kinds.
I was hesitant, but she insisted.
“Thank you.”
Well, I guess I have no choice but to accept graciously. I took them, put them into my bag.
I expected it might come to this, so during the break, I took out a container filled with horse oil I had prepared beforehand, and I also pressed it back on her.
“What’s this?”
Milia-san looked confused.
“For rough hands.”
“Oh, yeah, they get pretty bad, huh?”
She shyly tried to hide her rough fingertips.
Working with soil inevitably roughens your hands—water makes it worse. Now that it’s getting warmer, it’s probably not as severe as in winter, but it still looks painful. I can’t see it, but maybe her heels are also rough.
“I want you to use this.”
“Thank you.”
I’m glad she accepted it eventually.
Dawn-san was waiting behind with an armful of vegetables.
“Take them!”
I’m grateful, but the amount is too much! Too much!
He handed me as much as I could carry.
After reporting at the Adventurers’ Guild, I returned to the field hut and was struck speechless.
The days seem to be getting longer; even in the evening, it’s bright enough to see clearly.
A lot of the field has been plowed..
Wait, I definitely asked for only about one-third of a field the day before yesterday, and Regal-san said he wasn’t sure when it would be done.
Moreover…
Um, this is an entire field, isn’t it?
I only requested about a third of a field.
Even a third feels like too much to handle, and now a whole field…
What should I plant?
For now, I’ve temporarily planted the medicinal herb that looks like mugwort near the shed.
Should I increase the number of these?
Should I buy cheap, large-quantity seeds with a thousand-yen repeat?
Or…
I imagine Grandma Kaen’s fictional face grinning mischievously.
In my mind, an elderly lady who takes the luxurious name is acting as my proxy.
What should I do?
For now, I want to know the current state of the soil in my field. I’m interested in the soil of another world.
I thought about buying a pH meter that sticks into the soil, but I’ve never purchased one.
The cheap ones are inexpensive, but I worry about their accuracy.
Hmm…
Maybe a simple one like that will do.
With that in mind, I looked through my purchase history of a thousand-yen repeat orders.
Everyone’s favorite “pH test strips”—I’m sure everyone has probably bought them at least once. Probably.
They’re paper strips that change color when exposed to acids or alkalis, like litmus paper.
It costs 240 yen for a pack of 80, so about 3 yen per strip.
It’s cheap, fun, and I’ve used them for no particular reason, I even tried to measure the pH of the detergents I had at home to see if neutral detergents were really neutral.
And, here’s a little trick: if you cut them into thin strips, you can use them multiple times, which is economical.
This sneaky trick can also be applied with urine test kits at home.
Put the soil from your field into a suitable container, then pour in about twice the amount of water from a plastic bottle as the soil, and stir well.
Let it sit for a bit, then dip the test strip into the supernatant.
Oops, the water’s still cloudy, so it’s hard to see the color change.
But it looks kinda orange.
The closer to red, the more acidic. If it’s alkaline, it turns blue-green or dark black. A supposedly weak alkaline detergent I tested was a deep blue-green—much stronger than expected.
There’s a lot of clover in the grass growing there.
I guess I need to sprinkle lime on it.
If the mugwort-like herb really is like mugwort, it may be able to thrive even in acidic soil.
This will be put into consideration while making future soil improvement plans.
Also, looking at my purchase history, there’s something else that’s useful:
Wait—could maybe?
A sudden thought occurred to me, so I searched for chicken manure. Found it.
It’s a bit of a rural cheat, but—
One truckload of chicken manure: 100 yen
In the countryside, there are often nearby poultry farms—though it’s about a 30-minute drive, so not too close.
And sometimes, you can get the piled up fermented chicken manure almost for free if you pick it up yourself.
By “almost free,” I mean that it’s practically free, but if we say it’s free, some questionable people might come, so we have a box where you put about 100 yen when you come to take some to prevent that
That’s considered a purchase, apparently.
You can buy eggs at the poultry farm’s shop very cheaply. In the past, 12 large eggs, sometimes even twin eggs, were sold for the amazing price of 100 yen. They were a rare and special product, so you were lucky if you could buy them. The phrase “eggs are a special deal” is amusing in itself.
For now, I’ll buy a truckload, scatter it lightly, and leave the tilling for later.
I’ve also received discarded mushroom beds in the same way, so I spread them in the same way. Discarded mushroom compost? When I sowed that blackish brown stuff in the field, some kind of mushrooms grew.
I believe they were supposed to be king oyster mushroom beds, but they grew mushrooms that didn’t look anything like that. I was told they were fully ripe, but maybe they weren’t? they weren’t very good, I guess it’s because they weren’t ripe, right?
And then, lime.
I don’t remember ever buying quicklime because it’s dangerous.
For a home garden, dolomitic lime is easier to handle, so that’s what I mainly use.
Ah, maybe I should have spread the lime first…
But since I already spread the compost, there’s really nothing I can do. I guess I can wait a bit and then spread dolomitic lime later. I hope it works out.
The difficult part, or rather the troublesome part, was figuring out the proper amount of fertilizer and how much lime to buy.
Honestly, most people probably wouldn’t care about such things…
I don’t think there are many people who think it’s weird like me, but even if there are, I ask you to chant the magic spell, “This is fantasy, so just go with the flow! Go with the flow!”
Also, I’ve slightly revised my skill settings. From today, “Resilience Skill” will be renamed “Adaptation Skill.”
I’ve been fixing things little by little, but if I overlooked something, it’s just a typo. I’ll fix it eventually…
Web novels are such a cheat—they can be corrected later…
Even if I make mistakes, people tell me, and that’s amazing. Thank you very much.
Thanks always for catching typos and errors!
I look at the screen and then fix it with a click.
It’s really helpful.