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guava, amaranth (a flowering herb with edible seeds and foliage), sapodilla (a Central American tree fruit), epazote (a pungent green herb, similar to cilantro) and hoja santa (another green herb, whose name translates to “holy leaf” in Spanish).

    Devon G. Peña, professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, inventoried the plant life at the South Central Farm andbelieves that there were between 100 and 150 different plant species growing there, an example of mixed farming that took into account plants for medicinal, nutritional, and spiritual uses, as well as practical farming approaches such as companion planting. (Corn, squash, and beans are referred to as “the three sisters,” as the corn provides the stalk that the bean plants can climb up, squash provides a groundcover under the corn, and beans help with moisture retention in the soil and keep weeds from growing and using up valuable soil nutrients. As it turns out, these three crops are also nutritionally symbiotic when eaten together.)
    Aerial photos of the garden show how it was a verdant living rectangular island floating in a sea of asphalt, warehouses, and empty streets. But not everybody in the community was happy with it.
    Some gardeners would sell some of their excess produce, which gave the impression that the farmers were profiting from their plots. This was likely just a scapegoat for the community friction that was developing as the Latino presence in the community grew and the older, more established African American powerbrokers in the community felt left out (even though it should be noted that the farmers were helped along in their community organizing by members of South Central's African American community, many of whom had decades of grassroots activist and civil rights experience).
    Robert Gottlieb, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban Environmental Studies at Occidental College and director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute in Los Angeles, concludes in his 2007 book Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City that the South Central Farm had become “a showcase for inner-city food security, urban greening, and a new type of public and community space.” 8 Gottlieb adds that “people were suddenly interested in what was going on there.” The story got even more complicated as a third player entered the scene. “Perhaps, most importantly, Ralph Horowitz, the owner of the property when it was first taken over by the city, decided he wanted the property back.” 9
    The parcel of land had become valuable again because it was a safe, clean, and orderly part of an inner-city community. It was also located on the Alameda corridor, a freight rail yard that ran between the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach. And the previous owner, claiming that he was entitled to the right to repurchase the land under the original sale agreement in 1986, successfully sued the city for the right to get it back. Neither the decision to sell the land nor the sale price or terms of the sale agreement were publically released until after the deal was done. Unbeknownst to the farmers, the site was quietly resold to Horowitz in a murky agreement. Later, it was discovered that Horowitz essentially was allowed to buy the land back from the city for just over five million dollars, almost the same price he had sold it to the city for some seventeen years earlier.
    It can only be assumed that the farmers were expected to acquiesce, that they would not want to bring too much attention to their cause. Instead, the farmers sought legal advice, reorganized their plots among themselves, and, most importantly, started calling themselves the South Central Farmers Feeding Families. It was decided democratically among the farmers that families should be limited to the number of plots they worked as a sign to the outside that this was not a struggle to make money on the land but was viewed as a right to feed themselves and their