In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was more common to cultivate flowers, trees and vegetables in greenhouses, and the varieties increased, including not only herbs, but also woody plants, such as begonia ferruginea, gardenia, camellia, and the most delicate peony, which opened in greenhouses in winter, greatly adding a breath of spring to the world.
The second is sowing in stages and batches. In ancient times, sunflower was the main popular vegetable. In order to solve the perennial supply of fresh sunflowers, sunflowers were sown three times a year as early as the Han Dynasty. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, sunflowers were planted in batches in different fields.
In the Tang Dynasty, a new measure of sowing by stages was adopted. For example, in suburban vegetable gardens, the method of harvesting more in one place and diversifying varieties has been further developed. The third is to choose varieties reasonably. In order to solve the problem of out-of-season vegetables in summer, heat-resistant eggplant was planted in Song Dynasty to alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand in Natsuna. In the Yuan Dynasty, radish was cultivated to be heat-resistant. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, we made further efforts to cultivate and introduce vegetables suitable for summer planting, thus gradually forming a Natsuna pattern dominated by eggplant, melon and beans. The fourth is to improve the storage mode. Storage is an effective way to solve the supply of fresh vegetables in winter. In ancient times, the method of storing fresh vegetables was cellar storage, which was recorded in the literature of Han Dynasty.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River adopted a burial method similar to today's "dead pit". Since then, it has been continuously improved, and the so-called "living cellar" appeared in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Intensive production is a fine tradition of vegetable production in ancient China. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was emphasized that vegetable fields should be cultivated more. According to the characteristics of short growth period of vegetables, batch harvest of products, tender and juicy meat, the cultivation and management principles of watering the side planting, sufficient base fertilizer and diligent topdressing were gradually formed.
The method of sowing appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Qi Yao Min Shu written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty summarized the advantages of convenient watering, avoiding people trampling on vegetable fields and improving vegetable yield. Intercropping and interplanting to improve multiple cropping index was first developed in vegetable production.
In the Western Han Dynasty, there was a custom of making kudzu and agastache in the central part of Gua Tian. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, not only one vegetable was planted or interplanted with another vegetable, but also vegetables were interplanted with field crops. By the Qing Dynasty, there had been interplanting of vegetables with food crops and cash crops.