David Lozano of San Antonio was inspired to plant a community garden after watching Ron Finley’s talk. Photo: courtesy of David Lozano

Ron Finley is motivating people across the country to pick up a shovel and “get gangsta” by planting fruits, vegetables and herbs in their neighborhood.

Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LASince appearing on the TED2013 stage to talk about why he plants edible gardens in the nooks and crannies of South Central Los Angeles, Finley has been profiled in The New York Times and appeared on Russell Brand’s talk show, BrandX. On Saturday, Finley was featured in this CBS News segment, which tells the story of Terence Satler, a 20-year-old who once dreamed of playing football but now is in culinary school. He says that gardening alongside Finley taught him the joy of food.

“The most extensive knowledge I’ve acquired so far has been through Ron’s garden,” Satler tells the CBS cameras. “He has things you would never see. Especially in my ‘hood.”

We in the TED office are also hearing stories of those influenced by Finley to pick up a trowel.

In April, David Lozano of San Antonio watched Finley’s talk and wrote the gardener, saying, “I saw you on TED yesterday and have watched [your talk] three times since … Needless to say my household is going to plant a food garden for everyone to enjoy. We live just two miles south of the Alamo in San Antonio… How do you deal with stray dogs digging up the garden? And could you give me a suggestion what kind of herbs and vegetables you would have a novice gardener plant?”

Last week, Lozano wrote Finley to share an update, with images attached.

“These pictures are of everything when it was planted last month. In the whiskey barrel, we planted zucchini. We decided to not plant directly in the ground due to the metal recycling plants refuse in the air close to our house,” he wrote. ”The neighborhood grocery store has been planted for a month now. We are getting our first jalapeños.”

Lozano’s zucchini, planted in a whiskey barrel. Photo: courtesy of David Lozano

More herbs and vegetables in a planter. Photo: David Lozano

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Ron Finley electrified the audience at TED2013 with his fresh take on guerilla gardening. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

This weekend, we opened up the Style section of The New York Times to see a very familiar face — renegade gardener Ron Finley, whose talk “A guerilla gardener in South Central LA” now has more than 900,000 views. In the article, Finley describes what he calls “the TED effect” — the slew of interest that his electric talk at TED2013 has brought from celebrities, television shows and companies with collaboration ideas. Finley’s down-to-earth response?

“All the attention in the world won’t do my dishes,” he tells the paper.

Meanwhile, Malcolm London — the 20-year-old poet who will appear in Tuesday night’s TED Talks Education special on PBS — was interviewed in The Chicago Tribune this weekend. “On Tuesday night, if you tune into PBS’ one-hour special ‘TED Talks Education,’ you’ll see host John Legend and an array of prominent speakers, including Bill Gates, giving impassioned talks about ways to reinvent education,” the article reads. “You’ll also see Chicago’s Malcolm Xavier London performing a spoken-word poem about the racial and class tensions he experienced as a double honors student growing up in the tough Austin neighborhood while attending the more well-to-do Lincoln Park High School.”

The article asks London tough questions about his low GPA in high school and the fact that, while he’s teaching poetry, he hasn’t yet gone to college. He tells the paper that his high school performance was, in a way, a protest.

“I would leave my neighborhood and go to school, and I was seeing how divided the city was,” London says. “I felt whatever I was learning in class, wasn’t teaching me why people on the West Side were dying every day … I knew that four years later I’d be able to get into a distinguished college, but school wasn’t teaching me how to survive or better my community, and I wanted to change where I came from.”

Also in the news: TED-Ed was just named one of TIME magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2013.”

Ron Finley, the self-described renegade gardener, gave a hit talk at TED2013 on his gardening efforts all over South Central LA. Finley is an object of my fascination for more than one reason: In the 35 days since Finley’s talk went live, he’s left 178 comments on the site, making him the 3rd most prolific speaker commenter. (Trivia: the 1st and 2nd are Curator Chris Anderson and TED2011 speaker Janet Echelman.) To put it in context, as someone who receives speaker comments in a daily digest sent to me by email: Of the 1,250 speakers on the site, only 211 have left comments, and the average number of comments they’ve left is 19.

Here are my 10 favorite comments left by Ron Finley on TED.com — with just a touch of context, since that’s how I receive them in my inbox. Click on the link to see the full discussion going on in the thread:

Mar 7 2013, on his own TED Talk:

“THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I’M SITTING HERE CRYING READ YOUR PASSIONATE COMMENTS. MAN THIS IS A BIG TASK!!! WHAT THE HELL DID I GET INTO!?!?LOL CAN’TSTOPWON’TSTOP!!”

Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with lions

Mar 31 2013, on Richard Turere’s talk about defending his land from lions:

“Im so Proud Of my ‘LiL Brother Richard!!! Seeing him here brings me to tears. So happy for him. He deserves it all. Someone offered to sponsor him at MIT this summer, as soon has he walked off stage!! That is what TED is About!! . . .That’s me barking in the back ground!!!”

Mar 7 2013, on his own talk:

“EACHONEREACHONEEACHONETEACHONE”

Mar 7 2013, on his talk:

Thank you A! Start NOW. No Wait!!

Apr 2 2013, also on his own talk:

“Thank You Leslie!! Find The Train! ~r”

Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx
Apr 4 2013, on Stephen Ritz’s talk on gardening in the South Bronx:

“STEPHEN YOU ARE THE TRUTH! A REAL LIFE GAMECHANGER, A REAL LIVE, LIFE CHANGER!!! TED PRIZE!!!!!! AllGoodThings! ~r0n”

Mar 20 2013, on his own talk:

“Im working on IT!!!. . .Give me Thyme”

Mar 13 2013, also on his talk:

“Plants SunFlower First.”

Mar 14 2013, you guessed it, on his own talk:

“Hi Helena, Waiting for you & your Big Ass Shovel!!”

Mar 20 2013, by far my  favorite comment of his ever, on his talk:

“We have an agreement, They don’t pee in my garden I don’t Eat TheM!”

TED Active attendees help Ron Finley “plant some s***.” Photo: Nick Weinberg

“You ain’t gangsta unless you have a garden,” says Ron Finley of LAGreenGrounds.org. In this special video for CNN, Finley shares more about the idea he posited at TED2013 for improving health in his neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles — planting edible gardens wherever a strip of land is available.

“What we do is literally put vegetable gardens in homes in South Central, free of charge,” says Finley.Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA “We like front yards better than back yards because of the visibility front yards have. We want people to see the food.”

Last weekend, Finley held a full-out gardening party to plant a vegetable garden at The R Cloud House, an artist-in-residence house conspicuously located across from the L.A. Watts Towers. 20 TEDActive attendees attended the party, with friends in tow, working alongside Finley and volunteers from Heavy T’s Grow Show. Mud Baron from Muir Ranch donated soil, while Ray Cirino and Large Marge Sustainables provided food for volunteers. Together, the group planted corn, tomatos, strawberries, dill, thyme, basil, mint and swiss chard.

See tons of incredible photos shot during this planting party »

And read an essay Finley wrote for CNN »

In today’s TED Talk, guerilla gardner Ron Finley tells the story of how he was issued a citation, and then a warrant for his arrestRon Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA, all for planting delicious vegetables in the 150 x 10 foot patch of earth in front of his house in South Central, Los Angeles. It’s a rousing talk — one that will make you want to stand up and cheer … and maybe even plant some kale. As Finley says, “Let’s all become gangsta gardeners. We have to flip the script on what a gangsta is. If you ain’t a gardener, you ain’t gangsta. Let that be your weapon of choice!”

Yesterday, the day before Finley’s talk made it to the TED.com homepage, TEDActive’s own Nick Weinberg and Sean Gannet stopped by Finley’s gardens in South Central. Above, a view of the strip of no-man’s-land between the sidewalk and the street that Ron planted with leafy green vegetables and flowers. And below, look for more photos: a garden in a swimming pool and a closeup of Ron’s famous red Swiss chard.

Inspired? Check out these great TED Talks about growing your own food:

Britta Riley: A garden in my apartmentBritta Riley: A garden in my apartment Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles — researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. Call it distributed DIY. And the results? Delicious.

Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South BronxStephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx A whirlwind of energy and ideas, Stephen Ritz is a teacher in New York’s tough South Bronx, where he and his kids grow lush gardens for food, greenery — and jobs. Just try to keep up with this New York treasure as he spins through the many, many ways there are to grow hope in a neighborhood many have written off, or in your own.

Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapesPam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about foodJamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, West Virginia, TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

And another great TEDx talk on the subject: Roger Doiron’s My subversive (garden) plot. A vegetable garden can do more than save you money — it can save the world. In this talk, Roger Doiron shows how gardens can re-localize our food and feed our growing population.

Here, more images of Finley’s amazing gardens.

In an abandoned swimming pool behind his house, Ron Finley is growing artichokes, brocolli, kale and more, plus succulents and cacti (check out the mini garden behind the blue tiles). The blue barrels are collecting rainwater, and the black bins are for compost. Photo: Nick Weinberg

A closeup of Ron’s famous Swiss chard. Easy to grow and delicious to eat. Photo: Nick Weinberg

Photos: James Duncan Davidson

Ron Finley describes himself as a “renegade gardener,” and he’s here to tell us all about his home, in South Central, or South Los Angeles, as city planners attempted to rebrand the area. Whatever you call it, the truth is that the area comprises liquor stores, fast food and vacant lots, and it epitomizes the stark reality that 26.5 million Americans live in a food desert. Truth is, “the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys,” says Finley. “People are dying from curable diseases in South Central Los Angeles. The obesity rate in my neighborhood is five times what it is in Beverly Hills, eight miles away.”

Tired of seeing wheelchairs “bought and sold like used cars,” tired of seeing ”drop-in dialysis centers popping up like Starbucks,” and tired of “driving a 45-minute round trip to get an apple that was not impregnated with pesticide,” he could only come to one conclusion: “This has to stop.”

So he started working with the organization L.A. Green Grounds to install a vegetable garden on the 150 ft x 10 ft patch of ground in front of his house, that strip between the sidewalk and the street that the city owns but the resident has to keep up … and was promptly issued with a citation to remove the garden. Then he was served with a warrant for arrest. “Come on, really? A warrant for growing food on a strip of land you could give a f– … care less about? I said cool. Bring it.” Finley, it is clear, is not one to be cowed. The city backed off, a councilman endorsed what he was doing, and the city of Los Angeles is now set to change its ordinance. And why not? “There are 26 square miles of vacant lots in the city,” Finley says. “That’s 20 Central Parks; that’s enough space for 724,838,400 tomato plants. Why in the hell would they not okay this?”

“Growing your own food is like printing your own money,” he says, to applause. Then he tells us why this really matters to him. “I raised my sons in South Central. I have a legacy here. I refuse to be a part of this reality that was manufactured by other people; I manufactured my own reality,” he says. “I am an artist. Gardening is my graffiti. A graffiti artist beautifies walls; I beautify parkways and yards. I treat the garden as a piece of cloth and the plants and the trees are the embellishment of that cloth. You’d be surprised what soil can do if you let it be your canvas.”

“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city,” he continues. “Plus, you get strawberries.”

One night, he looked outside to see a mother and daughter in his garden at 10:30. “They looked so ashamed,” says Finley. “It made me feel ashamed to see people this close to me who were hungry. This reinforced why I do this. People ask me, ‘Aren’t you afraid people are going to steal your food?’ Hell, no! That’s why it’s on the street! That’s the whole idea! I want them to take it and take back their health.”

To date, Green Grounds has planted 20 gardens; 50 volunteers have come to their “dig ins.” The benefits are clear, says Finley: “If kids grow kale, they eat kale. If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes. But if they’re not shown how food affects the mind and the body, they blindly eat whatever’s put in front of them.” He wants to help the young people he sees, guide the disenfranchised away from a track leading nowhere. As far as he’s concerned, gardening provides an opportunity to take over those communities, to have a sustainable life.

He wants to plant a whole block of gardens, he tells us. “I want to take shipping containers and turn them into healthy cafés,” he says. And for anyone concerned about the business model. “I’m not talking about no free shit. Free is not sustainable. The funny thing about sustainability: you have to sustain it.” The audience loves this. “What I’m talking about is putting people to work, getting kids off the street, about the pride and the honor of growing your own food. We’ve got to make this sexy,” he proclaims. “Let’s all become renegades, gangsta gardeners. We have to flip the script on what a gangsta is. If you ain’t a gardener, you ain’t gangsta. Let that be your weapon of choice!”

Finley knows he has the audience’s attention. He’s not done yet.

“If you want to meet with me, don’t call me if you want to sit around in cushy chairs and have meetings where you talk about doing some shit,” he concludes. “If you want to meet with me, come to the garden with your shovel so we can plant some shit. Peace.” A standing ovation.

The speakers who appeared in this session. Click on the speaker’s name for a full recap of the talk:

Creative force Leyla Acaroglu uses innovative design and systems thinking to create positive change.

Renegade gardener Ron Finley grows a nourishing food culture in South Central Los Angeles’ food desert by planting the seeds and tools for healthy eating.

Mouth musician Wang Li mesmerizes audiences with his unique approach to two of the world’s most ancient (and surprising) instruments.

Teenaged science fair winners Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao have discovered a way to break down nasty compounds called phthalates, common to flexible plastics and linked to many health problems.

Energy software maker Alex Laskey helps power companies to help their customers cut down — using data analysis, marketing and a pinch of behavioral science.

Fueled by their deep Afro-Cuban roots, the Pedrito Martinez Group featuring Ariacne Trujillo, have rocketed to the top of New York’s Afro-Caribbean music scene.

Michael Green wants to solve architecture’s biggest challenge — meeting worldwide housing demand without increasing carbon emissions — by building with carbon-sequestering wood instead of concrete and steel.

Allan Savory works to promote holistic management in the grasslands of the world.