Photo: Weibo account of Lingquan Temple

Monks at a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province used social media to invite hundreds of locals to help harvest vegetables from their over-abundant garden they had planted during the novel coronavirus epidemic. 

Monks at Lingquan Temple of Wuhan posted the invite on the temple's Sina Weibo account, China's Twitter-like social media platform, telling citizens they needed help eating all the veggies from their very successful garden planted near the temple. 

"We reclaimed the land and planted these vegetables to feed ourselves. But we planted too much and we still have too much left over after donating some to other temples," read the post. 

An online video shows the monks harvesting a variety of veggies and pushing a cart loaded with crates of perhaps 100 kilograms beans and cucumbers. The temple's online post asked the question "What's the feeling of eating vegetable that were grown with Buddhist scriptures?"

The temple seemingly underestimated foodies' fondness for fresh flavors of just-picked veggies, as another post a couple of hours later called for "everybody to please calm down, otherwise we'll have to buy vegetables next month."

Built in 749 A.D. and rebuilt in 2001, Lingquan Temple is located in Longquan Mountain of Wuhan with an area about 9.3 acres. 

According to the Beijing News, the temple also reclaimed some unused land to plant vegetables with villagers living nearby. 

A worker at the temple said they've reclaimed 1.3 acres for their vegetable garden, and despite not using pesticides or chemical fertilizers they had an abundant harvest. 

The temple also shared videos showing villagers and monks working in the serene and peaceful garden as Buddhist music and recanting of scriptures was played over loudspeakers.

They temple's Weibo account was also flooded with comments, with one netizen asking "if the vegetables have been consecrated, will they help prolong life?"

The temple received hundreds of requests for free veggies after its first post. 

Three hours later, a monk sent a post in his own account, saying that he was "trembling, our farm is running out of vegetables." He also posted a photo with a caption saying "It feels like I am passing to Parinirvana," referring to the twelfth of the twelve deeds of a Buddha.

The humorous monk's post got some in return. "Masters, you know nothing about the power of foodies," wrote a netizen.

The temple worker said that they were expecting limited interact with citizens, and weren't prepared for all the attention. 

A netizen said these masters are explaining to us how the world is ever changing.