Jeanette Marantos, July 10, 2020 - Ron Finley — the self-proclaimed Gangsta Gardener — carries his persona like a shield. He’s this tall dude with hemp Patagonia pants and a slightly silver goatee who seems pretty laid-back until you’re close enough to read the keep-your-distance tension in his eyes.

Finley is a doer, a constantly moving, make-things-happen kind of guy, but this spring and summer he’s spent a lot of time answering questions from journalists and fans. He’s been famous for years, but his new online MasterClass in gardening hit the streets in April, when a national craze for gardening and then outrage over police violence and systemic racism brought a whole new audience to the pulpit where Finley has been preaching for a decade. His message? Empowerment through growing our own food.

Like everyone else, I wanted to get his take about current events and, of course, gardening. But right now, Finley is standing under a small cluster of banana trees outside his West Adams home with a steak knife in his hand — one of his favorite garden tools — and he’s talking in passionate scattershot, changing topics every minute or so while he trims some papyrus stalks overgrowing in the parkway outside his house.

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