Vegetable Seedlings: Seasonal Job with Extremely High Income

(Baonghean.vn) - In the early days of December, in the rural areas of Do Luong, in addition to producing green vegetables, people are also actively growing vegetable seeds such as: lettuce, chrysanthemum greens, purple cabbage, Chinese cabbage, kohlrabi... to sell to neighboring districts. The vegetable seedling business earns an average of 140 million VND/ha per month.

Mrs. Tran Thi Binh in Hamlet 7 Trung Son harvests new vegetable varieties for sale.

Currently, the typical vegetable nursery areas in Do Luong are the communes of Trung Son, Dong Son, Trang Son, Yen Son, Van Son, Hoa Son with nearly 100 hectares.

The family of Mrs. Tran Thi Binh in Hamlet 7, Trung Son Commune is a typical example. Her family has been in the business of growing vegetable seeds for sale for more than 10 years. Usually, after harvesting the summer-autumn squash crop, her family switches to growing vegetable seeds for people to grow in the winter crop such as: green lettuce, purple lettuce, mustard greens, purple cabbage, tomatoes, eggplants, kohlrabi, cabbage, and cauliflower.

Every morning she pulls vegetable seeds and bundles them into small bundles or plastic bags to sell for 5,000 - 10,000 VND/bag to serve people, earning 200-300,000 VND per day.

Purple cabbage is a new variety that is quite attractive to buyers.

Ms. Binh said: “The vegetable nursery is divided into beds 80-100 cm wide. The soil for sowing vegetables must be small, smooth, loose and airy. Because the nursery soil rotates crops regularly, before planting, more topsoil must be added to the bed surface to ensure that the plants have enough nutrients to grow.

Households make frames with plastic or nets to adjust the temperature and light for seedlings at each time, avoiding rain, floods and wind.

Sowing seeds requires a lot of labor. In the sowing stage alone, it takes one person one day to complete one row of seeds. Other care steps such as watering, weeding, hoeing, fertilizing and monitoring for pests and diseases must be carried out regularly and meticulously.

Lettuce and mustard greens are put into plastic bags before being sold.

Not only Mrs. Binh's family, but in recent years, many families in Hamlet 7, Trung Son Commune have been busy with growing, fertilizing and selling vegetable seedlings to serve the planting of vegetables during Tet.

Currently, the hamlet has over 70 households growing seedlings to sell not only in the district but also to other districts such as Anh Son, Tan Ky, Thanh Chuong, and Con Cuong.

According to households specializing in growing seedlings for sale in Trung Son, Dong Son, Van Son, etc., within just one month, each sao can generate an income of 7 million VND. After selling all the seedlings, on the same area, households will prepare the land to continue planting trees.

In addition to growing seedlings for sale, each year people also grow other crops such as squash, squash, cucumber or corn, each hectare brings in an income of over 200 million VND/year. Growing seedlings, although bringing in high income, is seasonal, only lasting a few months each year.

In order for the model of growing green vegetables and vegetable seedling to develop sustainably, many localities in Do Luong have focused on implementing good policies and mechanisms to encourage capital support in production, support technical guidance, and assign women's associations to establish joint venture models and associations in the production of clean vegetables to supply the market.

Ngoc Phuong