Why Uncle Li’s Spring Onions Are Unbeatable | New Book Excerpt
Foodthink Says
After ten years of farming at Gaia·Wosh Garden on the far fringes of Beijing, they have found that a bunch of small scallions picked up from the market can take root, flower, and set seed in the soil, accompanying them through the turning of the seasons; meanwhile, Uncle Li, a seasoned market gardener, has spent over twenty years selectively breeding his leeks. Having weathered torrential rains and survived floods, these crops have truly become seeds of this land.
As the vegetables sold through e-commerce and supermarkets grow ever more uniform, how long can we sustain the vital link once essential to seed inheritance across millennia of agricultural civilisation—the hands and eyes of local farmers?
The following excerpt is drawn from the chapter “Local Farmers, Local Produce” in the new book *Farming in the Satoyama*. We extend our gratitude to the authors and publisher Guomai for granting permission. Below are the accounts of these two “knowledge farmers”—
The rural market serves as a window into village life, constantly reflecting the passage of time. I remember when it used to be uncles and aunts riding tricycles to set up their stalls. They’d spread out their home-grown vegetables, just a few stalks of each kind, each display as full of character as the vendor behind it. Occasionally, small trucks from out of town would appear, moving volume on seasonal staples like watermelons and Chinese cabbage. In recent years, however, many vegetable stalls have grown into large, all-encompassing operations. The distinctive regional and seasonal character has faded. Everything is big, pretty, and uniformly trimmed, as if hacked to identical sizes with axes and cleavers, making the market feel more like an open-air supermarket. Yet among the shoppers, older folk still often ask, “Do you have any local spinach? What happened to the traditional chives?” In their day, it was simply taken for granted that farmers saved their own seeds. Many heirloom varieties of local vegetables were passed down through generations by local growers. Today, as these farmers become fewer and agricultural models change, “home-saved seed” is regarded as inefficient and outdated. Buying “local produce” has gradually become a sentimental gesture, precisely because vegetables grown by neighbours still carry that vital thread of trust.
At a market in May, we happened to run into Uncle Li, who had once taught us how to raise seedlings. He was swamped at his stall, with no time to chat, so he simply grabbed two bunches of spring onions and shoved them into my arms. “Take them home to eat,” he said. “Plant any you don’t need in the ground.” Before I could even thank him, the crowd swept us out of earshot. Those onions grew on nicely afterwards. We picked them as they grew, eating them right through until the end of the year, and left a few stalks behind in the ground. True to their biennial nature, the Chinese scallions kept perfect time; by late March the following year, fresh shoots were already pushing through. We snipped some young growth for a stir-fry with eggs, then, keeping company with a few busy little bees, we quietly watched that large spherical bloom open like fireworks, from its fullness to its eventual drying out. Soon enough, the dropped seeds sprouted into patches of new onion shoots, looking like tangled hair beside the old plants. A pity they were born out of season; most faded away with the heat and rain of July and August. Not many survived, but what was left was still plenty enough to eat.
When we met up again, we regaled Uncle Li with a few amusing tales about our onion-growing adventures. He chuckled and said our hands-off, low-effort approach was acceptable enough if we merely wanted a handful of spring onions, but if we truly wanted to grow large winter-storage scallions with long white shafts, we’d need to put in some proper graft. At his place, the onion season kicks off in March. It starts with preparing the ground, sowing the seed, harrowing it flat and firm, then digging channels and watering. Once the seedlings have reached June, he digs trenches to transplant them into neat rows. As the plants grow, he gradually hoes earth up around them in several stages, turning the trenches into raised ridges, all while applying supplementary fertiliser. The practice of “planting low and earthing up high” is specifically designed to cover the stems with soil to block out the light, which halts chlorophyll production and encourages a longer, paler shaft. It is this very process that gives northern Chinese scallions their distinctive flavour. So that is how the legendary “trench scallions” are brought to life!
Uncle Li explained that the onions in his fields wouldn’t be ready for harvest until late October. Once they were pulled, he’d sell what he needed to, keep what the family would eat, and set aside a selection specifically for seed saving. “You still save your own seeds?” I asked, naturally curious.
“Indeed. The original plants for this batch were actually bought right here at our market, some twenty years ago.” Uncle Li is the sort of person who loves to tinker. Whenever he went to the market, he didn’t just mind his own stall; he enjoyed browsing the rest, always keen to swap tips and trade whispers about new vegetable varieties with fellow growers. One year, he came across a vendor specialising in winter-storage scallions. Their white shafts were remarkably thick and long, and he was instantly captivated, quite unable to tear himself away. He stopped selling his own produce and went straight to the point with the vendor: “Hand me over two bunches. I’m keeping them for seed next year.” The vendor was a man of straightforward honesty. Recognising Uncle Li as a seasoned grower, and feeling that kinship one tradesman often feels for another, he climbed into the truck’s cargo bed, rummaged through the entire lot, hand-picked the finest specimens to make up two bundles, and let Uncle Li take them home to plant.
The trial crop was a success. Uncle Li then scoured a neighbouring town for another variety that boasted a thinner green shoot but an even longer white shaft. Hoping to make his field onions both “thicker and longer”, he planted the two varieties side by side to cross-pollinate, effectively turning his vegetable patch into an impromptu breeding programme. Under the same conditions of light, heat, water and fertiliser, the plants that grew tallest and sturdiest became his prime candidates for seed saving. Each year, before winter set in, he would select the healthiest, most robust scallions for seed saving, tie them into bundles, and stack them in a corner of his storehouse. As soon as the ground thawed the following spring, they would go back into the earth. He noted that it is best to trim off the upper half of the stems and leaves before replanting, as this encourages better flowering down the line. Suddenly it made perfect sense why, during our last seedling-raising session with him, we had spotted so many severed onion stumps standing starkly in the soil. They were all destined to become seed plants! As they sprouted, bolted, and flowered, we simply waited until late May for the spherical blooms to ripen. Once ready, they could be cut, placed in bags, and dried in the shade, at which point the seeds would detach with ease. In this way, gathering his carefully selected elite force for the year ahead, Master Li’s enthusiasm only grew stronger.
Aside from quality and yield, resilience is another key factor in Uncle Li’s seed selection. One summer, the rain fell in relentless sheets, wave after wave, washing away our radish seeds every time we sowed them. Uncle Li’s situation was even more dire; because his fields lay in a low-lying depression, several patches of onions were completely waterlogged and lost. The couple worked exceptionally hard that year, replanting Chinese cabbage just to salvage a fraction of their losses. Yet, despite the devastation, what weighed heaviest on their minds was the fear that their onion seed line might be broken. When I mentioned this to Uncle Li, however, he took a remarkably optimistic view. A few days earlier, he had happened upon a few survivors; scattered stalks were already pushing back up, here and there across the field. “These are true treasures,” he said. “I’ve got to look after them properly. You can see I’ve planted the cabbage around them, leaving them space.” In his eyes, the extreme weather had actually become a rare and priceless opportunity for natural selection. Any onions that could withstand such a blow were bound to be exceptional. By the end of the year, when we visited the couple, we saw a few bundles of those surviving onions tucked away in a corner. It struck me that just as a region’s environment shapes its people, the same applies to its seeds. Generation after generation, having weathered the local storms and hardships, they naturally become better attuned to the land.
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In February 2026, Changjiaoling & Wenzizi will lead a winter camp to visit fishermen (representing the marine ecosystem) and hunters (representing the tropical rainforest ecosystem) in Hainan. For details, see: 《Wo Si Mao Dong Series: Off to the Island! A Lifestyle Proposal from the Mountains, Rivers, Forests and Seas》
*Click on the image above to purchase
The second book from the duo known as ‘knowledge farmers’. Drawing on a decade of hands-on cultivation, they share candidly the paths they’ve charted and the stumbles they’ve made, whilst documenting the everyday moments shared with local growers, the soil, and the seeds themselves.
About the Authors
Zhang Jiaoling & Wen Zizi｜Born in the 1980s and both trained in the biological sciences, they met in the small Norwegian town of Ås. After completing their master’s degrees at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, they joined the environmental NGOs Friends of Nature (FON) and Fauna & Flora International (FFI).
In 2014, they co-founded Gaia Wushi Garden, beginning a self-sufficient *Satoyama* lifestyle alongside practical environmental education. Their aim is to draw nature back into people’s hearts through the simple act of cultivation.
Click the image below to discover their first book—*Down to Earth: A Knowledge Farmer’s Satoyama Life*:
