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[BUSTLING CITY STREET]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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RON FINLEY(VOICEOVER): I was
raised in South Central Los

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Angeles.

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People call it a food desert.

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For the last 10 years, I've
worked to turn this food desert

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into a food forest.

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When you're in the
garden, it seduces you.

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There's magic in creating
something with your own hands.

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Gardening has taught me more
about myself and this planet

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than I could ever
learn from any book.

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Growing your own
food gives you power.

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Once you have it, it's
something that could never

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be taken away from you.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I call myself the
gangster gardener.

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People ask me, why?

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Because to me,
gardening is gangster.

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It came from basically
in his urban communities,

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people were using this
whole gangster mentality,

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the violence, the
misogynistic behavior, the

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be high, be drunk, be
high, be drunk, to me,

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that was counter to
what we should be,

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because if you're intoxicated,
if you're high, that means

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you're not you're not woke.

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You're not you're not current.

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You're not clear.

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I wanted to change that.

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So I'm like, no.

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This is gangster.

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Having knowledge is gangster.

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Soil is gangster.

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Air is gangster as fuck.

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You can't get no more
gangster than air.

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Mother nature serves us all,
so we have to have this respect

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and help mother
nature do what she do,

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rather than thinking
it's just air,

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rather than taking
air for granted.

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Everything on this
planet is alive.

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We're not trained to
do that, and that's

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where I think if you get a
child at a very early age,

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and you show him the
magic, the alchemy,

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the the amazing wondrous
things that mother nature does

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with a tiny seed, all of
a sudden, you take a seed,

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and you put it in the ground,
and you have a 40-foot tree

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that gives you fruit forever.

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You want to talk about
your rate of return?

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That's what we
need to invest in.

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And that's the whole reason
I started my Parkway garden,

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because I wanted to show people,
the possibilities of what could

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happen with this particular
land that was just being used

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for people's dogs shit and
their dressers and toilets

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and whatever.

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They just discard all their
trash on your Parkway.

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So I wanted to beautify
this, but I put it

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outside because I
wanted to show people

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that they could
do the same thing,

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and this was a way that I wanted
to change these so-called food

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deserts, where we could build
community with each other

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by sharing in the works
and sharing in the food.

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And doing this, this has
happened all over the world.

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I say that gardens
represents freedom to me,

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and that's part of it.

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So with my garden, I'm
taking some of my power

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back, where I have control
over a major part of my life.

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I think everybody should
have the knowledge of how

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to feed themselves, and
what food they're eating.

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I want people to know
that you do have power,

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you do have a say so and
that your life does matter.

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But first of all, it's
got to matter to you,

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and that's what this is about.

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It's to show people that
there's a big part of your life

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that you can design yourself
and not live the life that's

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been designed for you.

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In my class, I'm
going to walk you

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through all of the tools any
gardener needs to have on hand.

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I'm going to show you how
to turn common household

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items into beautiful
containers for your plants.

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I'm going to teach you how
to grow an herb garden that

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will save you a ton
of time and money,

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and for all you out
there that can't

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seem to keep anything
alive, I'm going to show you

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how not to kill your plants.

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But most importantly,
what I'm going

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to teach you is how to
grow your own damn food.

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I'm Ron Finley, and
this is my MasterClass.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]