Spring is a time to go outdoors and embrace nature. During this season many Shenzheners spend their weekends attempting to live like farmers, by working in the fields and eating rough food.

Kiln-baked chicken

A kiln-baked chicken

Located between Nan'ao and Xichong on Dapeng Peninsula in eastern Shenzhen, Shakeng Village has fresh organic vegetables, free-range chickens and farm cottages equipped with modern amenities.

Visitors can pick lettuce, garlic sprouts and other green vegetables in the fields themselves. Or they can enjoy a leisurely day angling in the fish pools. The farmer's way to do it, however, might be a bit trying for the average urbanite, as it involves finding earthworms to use as fish bait.

When in Shakeng, catch, prepare and eat kiln-baked chicken. Several hundred free-range chickens roam around in the litchi woods behind the village, but catching them is a challenge. First you need a bamboo stick picked up from the ground to startle the chickens. While they are flapping their wings and running around in a state of panic, use both hands to catch one, and don't let go, no matter how hard it struggles.

It takes nearly an hour to cook a kilned chicken. Take some yellow earth and heat it for half an hour until it becomes red-hot, before crushing it. Then wrap a five-month-old chicken - plucked, cleaned and stuffed with soy sauce, salt, green onion and local seasoning - in layers of tin foil, to be wrapped in the mud and let it simmer for 20 minutes. The final product is tender, juicy and mouthwatering.

Jingui orchard

The orchard in the village

Jingui Village, a Hakka settlement with a history of more than 400 years, is located at the border of Pingshan and Kuichong in Longgang District.

It stands out from seven villages offering farm trips because of a large orchard and the Tianxin Mountain in the background.

Every month, visitors can taste different kinds of fruits in the orchard: In April there are mulberries, cucumbers and persimmons; in May come plums; in June pineapples and litchi; July and August bring mango, watermelon, litchi and longan; and even in October there are oranges and star fruits.

Apart from eating the fruits, you should also go hiking and play in the clear streams.

A day tour featuring events, plus three meals and all the fruit you can eat, costs 88 yuan (US$12.4) per person. Dishes include Hakka pork stew, kiln-baked chicken, duck soup and green vegetables.

Zhanjiang dishes in a bonsai garden

A table of rough food.

More than 100 bonsai add to the serene beauty of a small courtyard at the foot of Wutong Mountain in Yantian District.

The garden, where visitors can taste genuine Cantonese dishes, is a base of the Association of Bonsai Lovers of Yantian, according to its owners, an elderly couple surnamed Ye and Chen.

Chen used to work as a policewoman before she retired. Feeling guilty about not having taken good care of her husband when she was employed, she decided to improve her cooking skills after retirement. Soon she began cooking so well that friends urged her to open this private restaurant.

All her raw materials, including fish, free-range chickens, eggs, ducks and even peanuts, are shipped in from her hometown Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province. Chen also prepares herbal tea made of loquat leaves and preserved oranges. The tea is good for the throat, and is free.

(Li Dan)