Chapter 69 Winter crops and plans

Winter began, and as the first snowfall, it and my other crops withered and died, I began my money-making plan for this season. The first was planting all of the specialized seeds I purchased that could grow in winter. Someone developed those with a heavy specialization in creating winterized crop seeds for the rest of the farmers in the country.

The seeds were fairly expensive, but for most crops, it was a one-time purchase because the seeds I’d get would also have that same winterized effect that would let me grow through all four seasons. The problem was that he only sold four types of seeds, which meant that the food I could grow during winter would be heavily limited compared to the other seasons.

Winterized corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and parsnips. I preferred carrots to parsnips and was only going to grow them for other people, as I had enough pickled and preserved fruits and vegetables to last throughout the entire winter. Maybe some of the weirdo housewives who also loved rhubarb would prefer the fresh winterized parsnips over the other preserved vegetables.

Besides the thirty platinum(yes, the seeds were that expensive), I spent on four fields worth of seeds, I was planting something else in one of the remaining fields. The magified strawberries that grew better during winter. In a few years, other farmers might add this to their repertoire of crops grown during winter, but I’m fairly certain I was the only one growing them on this scale.

I stared out over the freshly planted fields before looking over the blue strawberries with an extremely satisfied smile on my face. This was mine, one of the only magified crops I developed and grew myself, and it was going to make me so much money this winter. A carton of strawberries was six copper, a jar of strawberry jam was a silver, and a jar of the cold jam was worth a gold. And that was for common rank, it went up even more if I made uncommon, rare, or even epic.

I had hundreds of the plants growing in the field, and I’d get about ten jars(triple growing speed in winter) out of every plant this winter. That was thousands of gold, or hundreds of platinum from the process, on top of all that, the blue strawberries gave more experience as well because they were magified. That was why I was so confident I’d reach fifty this winter. No, I would go well beyond fifty, possibly gaining more experience than I would during other seasons.

Because I was the only one growing the ultra-rare strawberries, it guaranteed they’d sell, just like the bundles the first time I sold them. The jam also had the effect of cooling someone down as if they’d just eaten ice cubes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the price went up for certain high heat dungeons or even used as medicine to bring someone's temperature down.

Plans to do the same with the magified pepper were underway. After testing, I knew I could grow them during the summer in the fields. Having another field that only grew the magified peppers would be good, but not as great as the strawberries, because I’d have to save some of the pepper for myself to get the seeds for the next time I wanted to grow them.

None of the other magified crops I had were on the same level as those two. Sure, the other type of magified strawberries I grew made them bigger and tastier, but so did increasing the quality of a normal strawberry crop. I needed to start purchasing more of the magified products with effects that would make the crops more valuable. Perhaps I could specialize in a single magified crop for every season and turn one of my fields into the magified field.

Things were working out, now the real question was… Which of my wives' weapons did I upgrade to gold? I could possibly do three, but I would really have to push for it, and it would leave us completely broke. Sarah was fine without upgrading. Delilah and Olivia could upgrade, but it would lock them out of using their tool for the time it would take, and Leaf could afford her own upgrades, while Cherry didn’t even use an upgradable weapon.

It felt like a waste for me to choose one of my own right now, a golden axe would make cutting trees a breeze, but a golden weapon might be the difference between life and death for my wives, so I’d always upgrade them first. Silk and Tems were the two I was really focusing on, because Sophia was more of a tank and healer than a damage dealer. The problem was that if they were using higher-tier weapons, then she wouldn’t have a chance to tank because they’d piss the enemies off way more.

So for sure Tems and Silk, then Sophia, Olivia, and Delilah, possibly if I can make at least twenty-five hundred gold from selling this jam… There was always a second money-making method I could do… I could sell starter magified strawberries for several platinum to other farmers who would then sell the jam they made during winter as well. It would heavily reduce the money I’d be able to make for the next few years, but it was a method for gaining an incredible amount of money all at once, and I was leaning toward it right now.

The truth was, since I’ve been selling the blue strawberries already, some enterprising farmers might have bought a bunch and already begun planting the magified strawberries from the seeds they got from the strawberries they purchased. In a few years, my monopoly on the fruit would be gone anyway. And… Selling the starters would easily make more money than selling the jam would… If all my plants sold anyway.

It was another gamble, I could ride out this strawberry monopoly for possibly another year or two, unless someone solely focused on growing more of the magified strawberries and produced multiple fields, I wouldn’t really have any competition… But for some reason, I was leaning toward selling the starters.

For one, my gut was telling me to. I had come to rely heavily on my gut for my decision-making, so that meant someone was trying extremely hard to break my strawberry monopoly, most likely. The second reason, that the heavy experience boost would only be for this year, then it would heavily taper off next year. Getting gold to upgrade everyone's weapons to gold, possibly buy some more enchanted equipment and items that would help keep our home safe, made almost no sense with how strong we were compared to the monsters… But my gut… My gut was telling me something big was coming.

The preparations I was making were something only the truly rich farms would ever think about doing, and then only after decades of farming and securing their legacy with their children becoming farmers as well. That was the farmers who worked with/for the royalty or the merchants' kabal directly. I did neither; everyone looking at the situation would wonder why I had overprepared for something bad happening, but they were looking at it from the outside.

I knew that once winter was over… I was going to sell the magified strawberries that grew from the ones I planted while saving the ones I’d replant next winter in the new planter golems I could make. Sure, making hundreds of them would be expensive, but it was once again all to help make growing them again next year easier, free up a field for growing other things, helping me make more money, and making them easier to transport and sell to other people.