My Key Takeaways from Masterclass with Ron Finley, the Gangster Gardener
Photo Copyright: © 2016, Jim Newberry. All rights reserved. Background image of veggies taken on Google Pixel 4
Have you ever heard of the Gangster Gardener?
Neither had I until I started seeing a series of ads pop up in my newsfeed on Instagram. At the onset of the pandemic, I, like most, found myself needing to occupy my time with something proactive vs. getting sucked into the abyss of COVID and political tensions. Enter Masterclass, an online platform with various courses taught by a range of "professors" that may or may not be celebrities themselves. I had initially signed up for Masterclass a year prior and forgot about it. But once the ad started following me around, I remembered my class from a year ago. It was divine timing as Sam and I were about to jump to house project #1: revamping the backyard garden.
A little back story, we live in the middle of Hollywood and luckily have a backyard; rare for those that might not know the real estate landscape of Hollywood. Next, Sam planted some pepper plants the previous year, and with the craziness of being on locked down, he decided it was time to expand beyond the pepper plants. Since neither of us has much experience with veggies, we were ready to get some basics tips on plants. Meet Ron Finley. If you haven't met him yet, he's a Masterclass Teacher, community activist, and super inspiring gardener. Self-described as the gangster gardener, it's hard not to resist clicking through the ad to see what Ron is all about.
What sold me immediately is his fresh attitude. Ron is not your typical teacher. He cuts straight to the point–no fluff with Ron Finley. Plus, Ron encourages thinking outside of the box when designing your garden, no matter what size you have available to you. He's all about a growth mindset when it comes to plants.
One of my favorite things about Professor Finley is his passion for growing our own food vs. relying solely on commercial businesses like our local chain grocer. Another way to put it: food sovereignty. He dove in deep on this concept during a Facebook Live. Perfect timing as the hoarding of food was already in progress. To be fully transparent, I hadn't taken the time to contemplate the notion of food sovereignty. Like why we purchase food from a major grocer. I'm guilty of this, and it wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles that I dove into local farmers' markets. Yes, it's more work or time consuming to grow our food or participating in a food exchange with neighbors via the local co-op. But in truth, this helps us connect to the seasons and gives us more interaction with Mother Earth. The convenience of getting a mango during winter costs more than the price per pound. It's one of the many takeaways from the class that I have been researching since. If you're curious about our food system, I highly suggest checking our Darin Olien's podcast and the show Down to Earth with Zac Efron. Perfect resources for those of us just pulling back the veil on this fatal convenience (shout out to Darin Olien's series). Excellent sources of information for your food sovereignty journey.
Now let's jump back to the Berrini garden. Sam's current passion is chile peppers, thanks to Rob from the 7 Pot Club's fun YouTube videos. So on the onset of this locked down, we started with two chile pepper plants. Now his pepper garden has about 15 varieties. Some I have never seen before, like the purple jalapeños. They're gorgeous! So why so many pepper plants? The man is on a hot sauce mission—farm to table style. I feel super blessed to be the taste tester as I'm a spice hound too. We also planted corn, herbs, kale, carrots, onions, garlic, and many other goodies. The corn was pretty mind blowing. I couldn't help but laugh that we had stalks of corn growing in the middle of Hollywood. One of the tips that Ron Finley gave was to cut off the roots of onion or garlic. Place it in the ground and tend to it like any regular plant you'd purchase. We tested it out and happy to say that it worked. It's incredible to see how simple it is to participate in producing your food. Be sure to check out this Masterclass. Adding gardening to your toolkit is essential and tastes good.