Topics in Urban Agriculture and Local Ecology (Sustainability) - Greater Los Angeles, Winter / Spring 2023.

 What an eventful start of a new year (2023), for agriculture, in this urban setting, centered around Downtown Los Angeles.

With so many agricultural-based projects centered around Los Angeles, this year, with much ado, with some long-established projects coming in to maturity. People would probably think, out here, in urban and suburban Southern California, that agriculture is typically as it was - off in some (remote) setting, yet, these days, as is evident, from the new SNAP food stamps vegetables and fruits bonus program (there’s various “programs” in place, for welfare benefits recipients, I’ve learned, over the past couple of months), people are receiving a nudge, from the powers that be, or, from their own self-driven initiative, such as making authentic cuisine, from various culinary disciplines, for example, using fresh fruits and vegetables as ingredients for making dishes from scratch (there’s been a lot of nitrogen, or some sort of refrigerant, being flouted around, as well - I’ll get to that, more, later, in this article). I like Thai, personally 😛. 

For starters,

folks who are local might be wondering where they can go, in town, to build upon their own personal (or business… décor, anyone?) localized agricultural interests, otherwise known as gardening, or interior design, landscaping, etc. I happened to choose a garden rarity - it’s considered an endangered species, in fact, as I’d learned, last night, as I perused the Royal Botanical Gardens’ kew.org voluminous database on vanilla, being that I’d found a longtime (and recent) favorite plant of intrigue, for me, which some of my longtime (and other blog) followers, would know, of me. I figured that I could dig some dirt, on my development projects involving vanilla, from the past, and jump on an opportunity to own my own vanilla bean vine(s) - (I got vines, for that matter, not just one). It’s a richly folklorish plant to research and discover, and it still would boggle the intellect, for modern day readers, as well, being that the plant is a favorite, in tissue culture circles, as well as in biotech. People would recall the drama surrounding my makeshift vanilla bean extraction project, which produced a liquid that smelled richly… of something quite unexpected. Perhaps I’ll divulge more, at some other point. 

In any case, for people who would like to outdo their standard garden variety selection of retailers, whether it be online, or in-store, when it comes to selection of plants - try out San Gabriel Nursery, in San Gabriel, CA. One thing, though - it’s much further than people might expect, as far as travel time goes, as getting to that part of town oftentimes means traveling amongst real workday and workweek commuters. This being the case, please only plan on going out there if you’ve got a sizable budget for making the trip work - this means gas, meals, lodging, even, perhaps, and, of course - plants. There’s nothing quite like local retail, and if I happen to have an outsized pop up audience, for this article, I could be doing the various locales, from here to there, from wherever you might be coming from, to arrive at - what amounts to rubbing the locals the wrong way, perhaps, as well as the nursery shop owners, potentially - it’s a well-stocked nursery, with lots of rare and exotic plants, but it’s definitely a small shop type of feel, so please don’t show up there with some kind of religious group, or religious following, sort of thing, about you - I’ve been going there since I was young, and that would really hurt, if this place was improperly targeted. 

Other than that, there’s no place like it in town. I think that there’s kind of a “no homeless people” kind of rule about the locale, and in towns surrounding the place, I have to warn people. I tried it, and man, it was pretty rough. I got a lot of attention, as a homeless person, out there. 

Which reminds me… about the cracks in the ground. 

On one hand, outgoing people (out in public) probably couldn’t possibly be all that regularly outgoing, and deny, that there are definitely tons of cracks in the ground, that are kind of a new thing, some of them. One person had chimed in, on the subject, going back to agriculture, with the oil industry, being one of the predecessors, or “diversions,” perhaps, from standard and organic agriculture, and, now biotech, with plant-based developments and energy resources being a hot topic, of development, and of sustainability. 

Anyways, the saying was something like, “well, all the cracks in the ground, well, that’s actually a great thing,” on the oil and natural gas industry’s side, but the context was an “out here” sort of thing, which is Downtown LA, and, at the moment, nearly everyone is trying to figure out how to get back to monetization of business and industry - the working folks are, at least. 

Or is this some sort of “Democracy,” or Democratic thing, that I don’t quite understand? That might be me, and maybe that’s the case. 

How are you a patron, here?

- some timely voice chimes in, on the subject - “as.” 

Eh. 

Everybody seems to be accusing others of this or that, but I think that so many people are really over it, and people are becoming concerned about - 

Umm, ugh. Never mind. So much drama. Here’s my Vanilla Planifola, Mexican variety, as a Harajuku Doll (I’d suppose… right?)

Rendered by Vector Q app, on iPadOS.

I didn’t even know that Harajuku dolls were amenable to tropical plants, until I did it.  

For people who would like to delve off-local cartography and travails around town, to unfamiliar places, Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups are both good places to network and mingle with people who are fairly time- and science-based invested in the vanilla industry. I just feel that showing up, somewhere, locally, beats a whole lot of ad serve and marketing efforts, even on my part, because it offers the consumer the option to browse a rich array of products that are suitable for local climates, here in Southern California, and there’s a whole lot of Asian and Chinese cuisine and nightlife, along the way, if you’re heading east, out from metropolitan Greater Los Angeles areas, off on Valley Blvd., or, if you’re headed down Mission, from the other side of town, you could perhaps check out the Alhambra public library, for example. 

This all being the case, check back on this blog, for some of my indoor and outdoor gardening and interior design: plant-related contexts, for growing tips, and expert insider decorative insights. For example, I thought that the vanilla plant resembled a rubber plant, perhaps, and I had some grand confabulations of perhaps becoming some sort of commodities mogul, as a next step, beyond Vanilla planifola localization, in to Southern California (outdoor, ideally) agriculture, which got me thinking, since the vines I have are nested on a dead log (of some kind of dead wood), that the plants could, perhaps be placed, strategically-minded, in this case, on some other sort of living plant, to the benefit, and eventual unique development (furtherment) of the species that I have, being that I somewhat envision the plant as a dynamic and adaptive grower, albeit under ostensibly tropical conditions. The significant issue, here, is that most people, in Southern California, hot and sunny, though it is, have nearly scant-to-none - experience, that is, living in a truly tropical, or subtropical environment, which these vanilla plants truly thrive in - the humidity hits the traveler, to a tropic region, from a locality such as ours, immediately, and a person would virtually begin sweating, the moment the person exits the airplane.

Helping build the watershed, aided by more well-established and practiced agricultural nations - 

Here and there, rumors float around of miraculous personal developments happening, typically due to intentional decree, and some sort of flash and ecological disaster-scaled whim of being on the side of virtue, whatever that is, in cases such as this. In this instance, a bunch of generally small guys, I’d somewhat have come to believe, had grouped together, as some sort of group establishment, part urban-development team, and part disruptive hoodlums and drug users, from out of the collective sober living home scene - to build a too-skinny-to-stand high-rise, from out of what used to be a standard-sized parking lot in Downtown Los Angeles - on one hand, sure, perhaps it could have been something better, in any case, but, on the other hand, some of the sidewalks in DTLA are kind of skinny, still, and it’s still a bit intimidating to go out and have to maneuver, deftly, and well-informed (sometimes), of that a bunch of people just want to do the drug-use scene and casual streetside death attempts, on a casual, fanciful, favorite, or targeted victim. We’ll see how far this sort of thing goes. The other night, thy were rumored to have taken a woman, from the company of some guy I used to know, who wound up doing psychotic gestures towards me, in my head, once I became schizophrenic, and, later, simply knowingly harassed, in short. A crack-pack kid, as I knew him, as a young person - I thought that it was kind of impressive, at the time. 

It’s a challenging premise, perhaps, but it’s cheap and slutty to believe the best, out of a situation, in general, when there’s some sort of distaste, inherently assumed, between individuals, whereas cheap and slutty would generally sum up these types of differences in life. Small micro-ecological events, and concentrations, of certain types of behaviors, for example, from a kidnapping, and drugging, of a whore, for example, could, in turn, spur some form of unexpected, and or unprecedented sort of retaliation, such as that we had seen, supposedly - across the nation, and locally, here, in Southern California, and in Los Angeles. I felt like I was disproportionately drawn in to the extreme weather action. 

All things being the case, as such, I’ve been attempting to burgeon the agricultural contexts, within this urban setting, as best I can, while maintaining some personal boundaries, such as keeping to things that interest me, and also by trying to tidy up some of the sloppiness, or, at times, things would be a matter of waiting things out, to discover what the eventual decided purpose and uses would be, per se, for stuff that had popped up, around town, such as a recurrent and persistent urine smell, that had shown up, in Pershing Square. For that matter, due to some of the rains, which featured dropping atmospheric nitrogen, in excessive levels, the subway walls had become hopelessly tainted with calcified urine, and several other stations had  taken on, as well, the characteristic odors of urine, which played out fancifully, in some remote sensing humor development settings, such as “I’ve gotta be of on piss, for a pissed-on!” - a crowd favorite. As it turns out, the sparrows took a fancy to the of on olde (piss), as, they had discovered, the urine was a source of novel pleasure, should the power of it, be released, and they would sometimes hop around, and meddle in the dirt, where the piss was of on olde, and constantly there, embedded in the clay dirt, still, despite the rains.

So, there was some bit of inclusivity, that I could feel, for being the bird-feeding guy, on a regular basis, of some of these other projects, which had been developing, yet I had not much of a clue, about these niche and sub-pop themes, for some of this stuff.

Ugh. (from then, until now):

The new era of handheld USB(-C) [Li-ion battery-chargeable - sometimes] home and garden small appliances. (Updating)

It’s been about high-time for some change in our domestic lives, tech and lifestyle-wise.

It’s more than ingenious - the feeling of charging a device, on the same basis; the same cord, if you will, as we had gotten used to charging much more familiar things, in our metropolitan lifestyles, powered by e-commerce giants such as Amazon. AMZN (Nasdaq). It’s the empowerment of the consumer, by simplifying the essentials in our lives; it would seem both inevitable, as well as incredible, to consider.

Here, I’ll showcase several devices, offered on Amazon, which make use of USB-C power and Li-ion batteries, just like the latest smartphones, tablets, and laptops that we use, and have come to expect - have a compatible and universally recognized power supply. Okay. I might include a few Micro-USB devices, just because - it’s not been fully integrated in to the manufacturing process of some of these devices that I’d come across yet, but for the sake of inclusion in to my lifestyle marketing pitch, here, I’ll include some of the stragglers, and perhaps update this article in the months and years to come (originally posted in May of 2022). 

Tool Daily - Grass/Hedge Trimmer - $31.99 

This is a beauty of a USB-C chargeable device. It makes the task of gardening so much more relatable for our daily lives, which had become stalwart stand-off events, in the context of being glued to web browsing, newsfeed tidbits, and social media finger-flipping, trying to find some way to make use of technology for our benefit, especially for those of us who had been unemployed, here, in California, during the pandemic. With that notion still fresh in our minds, with many people, here in Los Angeles, still wearing masks, the tendency, for the jobless, is to search and strive to find some way in which we can monetize our particular individual strengths and skill sets, without sacrificing our dignity, or personal standards in how we expect to be treated - I’ve been there, before, in feeling pulled, by the hand, in pursuing some sort of superficial escape from daily strife and instability, of a casual offer of friendship, I’ll say, gone awry. Be certain - this sort of lifestyle accommodation is by no means a trap that we must face, for all our lives - for the willing-to-work demographic, there are social institutions in place for the sake of bettering our lives, through government programs, for example, which “sustain” us, at a minimum, and they provide us with regular reminders of that life ought not feel completely hopeless; in this case, I chose gardening services to offer to clients, on craigslist, as my occupation du jour, to pursue. People have been generally forthcoming, in the small numbers in which I am reestablishing a new professional identity, after many years, in my late 20’s, in to age 30, or so, which marks the time in life in which I once again significantly fell from grace, and failed, in professional and personal circumstances. It’s virtually bound to happen, for some of us aspiring and practicing entrepreneurs, of a self-styled “business.” Yet, as millennials, give or take, we’re coming of age, in to our 40’s, now, and it would seem to be less “affordable” to continue forth, in doing anything, of an irresponsible and unaccountable nature, within the scope of professionalism. The consequences are real, but rest assured - there are good people out there, within the community, who are willing to hire the right person, on craigslist - it happens regularly, but don’t just search for gigs, or jobs - that’s my advice; try out the services section - it only costs $5 to post an ad for something that the poster might specialize in, and the elves will go to work, behind the scenes, checking user intent, trackable data, perhaps, and the marketing identity of the user, and hopefully, those things will have checked out alright - have you been offering user data to developers, for example? Certain allowances, rather than disavowals, in the subject of data sharing - are invaluable, to some entities - there are rewards and programs offered for the willing contributor of a desirable marketing demographic. For example, I started getting in to white blood cell donation, for $250, every five weeks, as well as research studies, which are more randomized, rather than reliable, as income sources, yet I’ve landed a few, in the past several months, via my Facebook feed, which - all of a sudden, somewhat, turned in to a precious marketing resource of opportunity, as for myself. In my experience, the vast majority of craigslist transactions are well-executed, on both ends, although people are wary of flakes, and it might take a bit of practice and intentional composure, on the service provider’s part, to maintain the job’s basis. Check out my blog article on some best practices in composing a classifieds ad, such as on craigslist.

Cefrank Store - 8 x 1 watt | 10 slot 5v 2a 6,000k LED Spotlights - $42.90

People who have become acquainted with my historical social media (Facebook) data, which is publicly available, would attest to my fascination with effect lighting, within the scope of personal interior design and decorating. This sort of pursuit had formerly been largely fulfilled by the likes of IKEA - yet, on Amazon, we see a much more open-air market sort of competitiveness, with manufacturers being capable of dealing direct, from as small as a single individual, potentially - capably marketing their goods, and having Amazon provide fulfillment features, such as processing the payment, advertising sellers’ items on third party platforms, such as Google Shopping, and, at times, the shipping is also handled, perhaps partially so, or perhaps, that Amazon even provides warehousing for some of sellers’ products. Amazon truly does it all, in fulfillment, within their umbrella of organizations and brands. 

Much more than might be realized, and yet, how far had Amazon come, since the days of Jeff Bezos’ bootstrapping young, talented aspirations, coming to light, with his stacks of books, at hand, and with books, having been the basis, initially, of Amazon’s premise, for consumers. People might even forgotten Amazon’s beginnings, from what it has become, as a company. 

The expanse of product offerings extends in to yet more miniaturization of a commonly-beloved decoration staple - the spotlight, or track lighting, nearly (or, it could be used as track lighting, in a pinch) - here, offered as an 8 x 1 watt array of LED lights, on a swivel base, with holes for screws, for installation, and screws included. It’s elegant, in its simplicity, and what could be more cute, or more tasteful? 

Here, the performance and quality of spotlights, compared between IKEA and Amazon’s offering, through the Cefrank Store, sees the Amazon seller’s offering as a higher quality aluminum casing design, versus memorable plastic spotlight LEDs, with fewer slots offered (4, versus 8 lights, with this seller, and 10 slots available, in total) - the Cefrank Store’s offering also rounds out to a cheaper price than IKEA’s comparable offerings - granted, I didn’t bother to check their latest offerings in miniature track lighting, I’ll say, but I had previously purchased their track lighting, back in 2010, or so. I’m eager to get to a professional camera and lighting store, to nab some great colors, in terms of lighting gels, otherwise recognizable as clear, colored sheets, for the sake of filtering (and thus, changing) the color of lights. 

AICase Store - Biometric Fingerprint | Thumbprint Authentication Lock Box - $39.99

In the days of free-wheeling and open access on the internet, for so many possibilities of life, including new methods and means of perpetrating crimes upon victims, I wound up relating to this neat-o device, as a means of effecting greater security, on top of that this lockbox works great with most of my product line, which happens to be fragrance extracts and isolates, as well as aroma chemicals. The device is made well enough to evade most intruders’ willingness to intervene in a person’s say about what constitutes appropriate and sociable interactivity. The design is sleek, with a view-roof, at the top of the box, to keep belongings in view. The lock itself is just a slotted rod, but it does the job, well enough. On top of all of that, the device’s documentation claims that the box will stay charged (via USB-C) for around 2,000 openings of the box, upon authentication, with a built-in 280 mAh Li-ion battery. Best of all, the impressive significant basis of this particular lockbox is that it is fully run by fingerprint or thumbprint biometric authentication, reminiscent of an Android smartphone or iOS | iPadOS device. It’s truly a beautiful thing.

“Sunset” lamp, with 16 color variations, by Yicen Trading Co., Ltd

This lamp, available on Amazon, is unlike any other lighting product I’d ever encountered. It’s simply amazing, right? The coolest thing about it, aside from the lighting aspect, is that it can be taken around, with you, on a mobile-cool stuff lifestyle outing, perhaps involving a feature piece of artwork, or doing photog work for a client, where this lamp would illuminate both the subject and the background beautifully - and it can all be done on USB (it’s actually the only possibility - [USB-A]). Although I hadn’t set it up, at the time of this writing, my idea with this lamp, initially, as the name implies, is that I’d implement it, plugged in to a timer, perhaps, to simulate the sun’s rise, in the morning, rather than have it as a sunset effect, although, upon considering it, why not? The device is quite sturdy and well-made, and it is a bargain at $25.99 (although at the time of writing, it’s being offered for $17.99). It’s arguably the most beautiful light available in retail, especially for the price.