Overview

Through the lens of his experience as a multiracial Asian American-and a deskbound-worker longing to get his hands into some dirt-Alec Yoshio MacDonald makes the case for reclaiming one's self through gardening. The One-Seed Revolution explores the personal benefits of growing vegetables from seed. Weaving together reporting, how-to guidance on growing heirloom vegetables, and memoir, author Alec Yoshio MacDonald draws on years of experience as a journalist and a gardener to examine how people can forge a more intimate relationship with their food. Inspired by his ancestral farming connections, MacDonald looks to natural farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution, and to the Kitazawa Seed Company, a century-old independent seller of Asian heirloom vegetable seeds, for guidance. In addition to exploring the company's historical legacy, he digs deeply into the Kitazawa catalog to provide gardening advice on raising heirloom vegetables, along with culinary suggestions. The book includes tips on growing 16 different Asian vegetables from seed, including: Daikon (Tokinashi) Turnips (Hinona Kabu) Carrots (Kyoto Red) Burdock (Takinogawa) Mustard (Wasabina) Cabbage (Aichi) MacDonald argues that the garden is not only a place for people to find themselves, but also for them to respond to seemingly overwhelming problems, including the climate crisis and our broken food system. By focusing on what we can control and not underestimating the importance of smaller, quieter action - such as growing vegetables from seed - we can achieve healing, especially when we see ourselves as participating in a larger community.

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9781734901146

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Alec Yoshio MacDonald is a journalist who writes frequently about the environment. He's currently the editor of the Bay Area Monitor, a magazine about environmental policy published by the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area. He also works as a freelance book editor, currently under contract with Straus Literary. Formerly, Alec was a reporter for the Nichi Bei Times covering community affairs, the arts, sports, and the environment. He continues to contribute to the newspaper, and has written for other publications such as Hyphen magazine, Nikkei Heritage, The Chicago Shimpo, the East Bay Express, and San Francisco Weekly. He has completed a Dat Winning Fellowship and produced a multimedia oral history project about postwar community sports for the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society. Alec holds a bachelor's degree in literature from UC Berkeley and a master's degree in the humanities from the University of Chicago, where he wrote his thesis on John Okada's book No-No Boy. He lives with his wife and son in Oakland, where he raises chickens and gardens with reckless abandon.

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