"what's that smell...." I held me breath and asked. Yihong looked at me and laughed: "it smells eh?" He walked over to the 120cm tall container and opened the lid. The scent burst out and permeated the surrounding open air. When I looked closer, it saw that it was filled with numerous brown little balls. "Isn't it stinky? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" Yihong burst out laughing enjoying my digested expression.
For the next couple days, every time I walked past it, I frowned; but apparently, this mystery container is not only good "skin care" for the guavas, but extremely nutritious for them. We pushed a barrow filled with fresh guavas while Yihong looks through the field and chooses the guavas that are ready to be harvested.
I have no idea how he chooses the guavas, but he'll look at them and in 3 seconds decide if one is ready or not. "Bigger does not mean better," he says. You look at the colour and you feel the texture. Going through rows and rows of guava trees, you see various insects eating and resting on the guavas and their leaves. "Aren't we choosing concubines like a emperor! HAHAHA." Yihong sneakily giggled. Every branch from the guava tree can only support one guava. If there is another one on the branch, it'll absorb the nutrition from the other one, so Yihong also has to get rid of the other one to better treat the chosen one. Such faviourtism! "I'm single, but I have six hundred guavas to romance," Yihong tells me as he flashes a sweet smile.
After we finished picking the guavas, he separated them into three piles: good ones that are ready to be sold; ugly ones that they can eat and give away, and ones that are too ugly or insect-damaged ones that can be dumped into the big stinky bucket!!!
Yes, that's where the stinkiness, I mean nutritious scent, came from, all the rotten guavas with the nutrition of some bugs. It is his natural fertilizer. He mentions a whole bunch of jargon and processes, explaining how to make this into nice smelling fertilizer, but the names are so specific that I only know how to translate one name: lactic acid bacteria. Essentially, he treats it like 'milk' with which to shower the guava roots. Staying there for two days, this has been the most time I've ever spent with guavas. I found out that even though their skin is rougher than other fruits, they are so delicate. I learned that their roots grow sideways and all sorts of the fruit's other small little habits.
I picked one and ate it on the spot. How crispy and fresh.
