Why Can’t Anyone Match Uncle Li’s Leeks? | New Book Excerpt
Foodthink Says
After ten years farming at Gaia Worth Garden in the far suburbs of Beijing, they have discovered that a bundle of spring onions picked up casually at market can take root in the ground, flower, set seed, and keep them company through all four seasons; and the Chinese leeks of Uncle Li, a master of the vegetable patch, have been through more than two decades of selection and breeding, weathered torrential rain and survived floods, becoming seeds that truly belong to this patch of land.
As the vegetables sold online and in supermarkets grow ever more uniform, how long can the vital thread of seed inheritance in a thousand years of agricultural civilisation — the hands and eyes of local farmers — endure?
The following is an excerpt from the “Local Farmers, Local Vegetables” chapter of the new book Farming in the Satoyama. With thanks to the authors and publisher Guomai for the licence. Here is the record of two “knowledge farmers”—
The big rural market is a window into village life, always catching the changing times in its reflection. I remember when the uncles and aunts used to ride their tricycles to set up stalls, spreading out a few stems of each home-grown vegetable across the ground, each display as full of character as the vendor. Here and there were small trucks from out of town, moving volume on a single seasonal item — wholesale watermelons, napa cabbages. Lately, many vegetable stalls have grown large and comprehensive; the regional and seasonal character is no longer distinct. Everything is big and pretty, cut square as if by a chopper, and shopping feels like browsing an open-air supermarket. Among the buyers, the older ones always ask: “Any local spinach? Where have the old-fashioned Chinese chives gone?” In their day, it went without saying that farmers saved seed from their own crops. It is through the hands of local growers that many old varieties of local vegetables have been passed down from generation to generation. Nowadays, as these people grow fewer and agricultural models shift, “self-saved seed” has come to seem inefficient and outdated. Buying “local vegetables” has itself become a matter of sentiment, because food grown by local people for local people still carries the thread of trust.
At a market in May, we happened to run into Uncle Li, who had once taught us raising seedlings. He was bustling about his own stall so fast he was practically smoking, with no time for small talk. He grabbed two bundles of spring onions and shoved them into my arms: “Take these and eat them. If you can’t finish them, plant them in the ground.” Before we could even say thank you, the tide of shoppers pushed us out of the conversation zone. Those spring onions grew on nicely; we picked them as they came and ate right through to year’s end, then simply left a few in the ground. True to their biennial nature, the Chinese leeks sent up new shoots before April the following year. We snipped some spring onion greens to stir-fry with eggs, and then, alongside the little bees, sat quietly watching that great flower umbel — like a firework in full bloom — from its plump peak to withered dryness. Soon the shed seeds sprouted into clumps of fresh leek seedlings clustering around the old plants like unkempt hair. Alas, they were born out of season; most perished in the rain and heat of July and August. Not many survived, but there was still enough to eat.
When we next met, we chatted with Uncle Li about a few amusing anecdotes from our leek-growing adventures. He laughed and said our low-effort, self-cycling (read: do-nothing) approach was fine enough if you just wanted a bit of spring onion, but to grow a proper winter-storage leek — big, with a long white shank — you’d have to put in real work. Every year, Uncle Li’s leek season starts in March: preparing the ground, sowing seed, harrowing and packing it down, digging irrigation channels. Once the seedlings have grown until June, he digs furrows and transplants them in rows. As they grow, he earths them up in several passes, piling the soil in the furrows into raised leek ridges, and top-dresses at the same time. This technique of “planting low, mounding high” works by covering the stems to block the light, halting chlorophyll synthesis and coaxing out a longer white shank — the very thing that gives northern Chinese leeks their flavour. So that is how the legendary “furrow leek” comes to be!
Uncle Li says the leeks in the field won’t be ready to harvest until the end of October. After that, what’s for sale gets sold, what’s for eating gets eaten, and some have to be set aside for seed. “You still save your own seed?” I asked, full of curiosity.
“Oh, you bet. The great-great-grandparents of this batch were bought right here at our market, and it’s been over twenty years now.” Uncle Li is a curious soul. Every trip to market, he doesn’t just run his stall — he loves browsing the other stalls and is always eager to swap gossip with fellow growers about vegetable varieties. One year he came across a stall selling only winter-storage leeks, with shanks so thick and long he was smitten on the spot and couldn’t drag his feet away. He stopped selling his own vegetables and went straight at the vendor: “Give me two bundles — I’m saving seed from them for next year.” The vendor, a practical fellow, saw at a glance that Uncle Li was a master of the vegetable patch, and something of a kindred spirit was stirred. He climbed into the back of his truck and turned everything over, picking out the best until he had two bundles, and told Uncle Li to go ahead and plant them.
A year of trial growing, and the results were good. Uncle Li then scouted out another variety from a neighbouring town — one with a thinner body but an even longer white shank. Hoping to get his leeks “thicker and longer,” he planted the two varieties together so they could cross-pollinate, and while growing leeks he effectively started “selecting and breeding.” Given the same light, heat, water and feeding, the ones that grew taller and sturdier were Uncle Li’s targets for seed saving. Every year before winter sets in, he selects the healthy, robust seed leeks, ties them into bundles, and stacks them in a corner of the storehouse. Come spring the following year, as soon as the ground thaws, they go back into the field. He says it’s best to cut off the upper half of the stems and leaves before planting, so they flower properly later. No wonder last time I was learning to raise seedlings with him, I noticed a lot of truncated leeks sticking out of the ground — they were all seed contestants! As they send up shoots, bolt, and at last produce flower umbels that ripen by late May, you can cut them down and bag them; once dried in the shade, the seeds on top come loose easily. So it is, gathering up his hand-picked elite for the next round — Uncle Li’s enthusiasm only grows with each passing year.
Beyond quality and yield, strong survivability is another consideration in Uncle Li’s seed selection. One summer, the rain came in tumbling sheets, one downpour after another. The radish seed we sowed in our field got washed away with every planting. Uncle Li’s place fared even worse. Because the ground sat low, several of his leek plots were simply drowned. The old couple had a particularly hard year; they replanted with napa cabbage just to claw back some of the loss. Still, what worried them most about that leek disaster was the risk of their seed line being broken. But when we brought it up, he actually took it in a positive light. A few days earlier he had happened to notice that the Chinese leeks in the field hadn’t been wiped out entirely — a few scattered survivors were pushing up, this one here, that one there. He said, “These are treasures. I’ve got to look after them properly. You didn’t see — I even planted the napa cabbage around them.” In his view, this extreme weather had actually turned into a rare gift for selection: any leek that could survive this was bound to be something special! When we visited the couple at year’s end, looking at those few bundles of post-storm leeks in the corner, I thought: a place’s soil raises its people, and isn’t the same true of seed? Generation after generation, having weathered the local storms and floods, they naturally stay rooted in this land.
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In February 2026, Chángjiǎolín&Wénzīzī will lead a winter camp, visiting fishermen in Hainan (marine ecosystem) and hunters (tropical rainforest ecosystem). For details, see: The Worth Cat’s Winter Retreat Series: Heading to the Island! A Life Proposal from Mountains, Rivers, Satoyama, and Sea
*Click the image above to purchase
The second book by the two “knowledge farmers.” They write with complete candour about the paths they have trodden and the pitfalls they have stumbled into over a decade of farming, and record the small moments of living alongside local farmers, the land, and seed.
About the Authors
Chángjiǎolín & Wénzīzī | Born in the 1980s with a background in biological sciences education, the two met in the small Norwegian town of Ås and, after completing their master’s degrees at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, joined the environmental NGOs Friends of Nature (FON) and Fauna & Flora International (FFI).
In 2014, they co-founded Gaia Worth Garden, beginning a life of self-sufficient satoyama farming and environmental education practice, hoping to bring nature back into people’s hearts through the act of growing food.
Click the image below to learn about their first book — Earthy, Not Dated: A Knowledge Farmer’s Satoyama Life:
