 The black of the better, the black of the better. But y'all really, I have under vegetables, huh? Yeah, seriously? Fuckin' with the vegetables. What's your favorite? Brown corn on a blue flame? What's your favorite vegetable? Favorite vegetable? Watermelon. That's a fruit. Nigga's a change of question, you know what I'm saying? What's your favorite vegetable? That's a watermelon. That's a fruit. Hey, bro. Make a t-shirt with a watermelon on it and say watermelon, that's a fruit. That'd be dope. It's hard. What's your favorite vegetable? To grow or to eat. Both. Uh, let's see. To grow. I like the challenge of the carrots. I'm still working on that. You're still trying to perfect them? Yeah. It's slow and steady. Yeah. The carrots. Yeah, because, you know, I'd be looking crazy and everything growing up and then you pull it out and it'd be dud. If they grow underground, you just never know. That's what's up, man. So I like to surprise it out. To eat. Probably most frequently killed. That's what's up, man. Pollocks. That's what's up, man. I got my info on y'all, too, man. You know, I got my notes over here, man. We're really getting into this shit, man. Speaking of getting into this shit. Welcome back to the 80 Fire South Show. Black Excellent Spotlight. You know what this is about. This is what we, we go search through the community and we find black people doing excellent things. That's how we got these two strapping young gentlemen in here with me today, man. Make sure I get y'all a proper dope ass intro. Check this out, man. I got my man, Desmond Bakersville in here. Baskerville. Huh? Baskerville. Oh, wait a minute. Baskersville? Baskerville. This shit ain't safe. Okay. Baskerville? Baskerville. Baskersville. Hey, man. I got my brother, man. Desmond Baskersville there. I still say this shit, bro. But what? I got it close. Say it. Baskerville. Desmond Baskerville. I'm high, bro. Desmond. It's Desmond. We don't smoke. There you go. It's Desmond. Just say Desmond. Desmond. Chris. Tuffer. Lennon. Make sure I broke that shit down. That ain't right, man. They put that name in that forest. Nah, bro. How y'all living, man? Welcome to the trap. Man, we appreciate you having us, dawg. Thank you for real, man. Appreciate y'all thinking of us. Yeah, man. We living good, man. Growing good. You know, trying to grow a community. Get this thing popping. That's dope how you flip that. Grow a community. That's right. Bro, tell me about it, man. It's like this shit is so dope because you don't meet a whole lot of people. That's doing what y'all doing right now, bro. Yeah, so we the dynamic duo of Gratitude Botanical Farm, right over on the west side of the city of Atlanta. We've been running our farm for right at three years. Now we're about to hit our third year anniversary in our county. Thank you. Well, we made it, bro. To me, the dopest thing is y'all right there by the flame. Yeah. Right there on the good old west side of Atlanta. Both of us from Atlanta. So dope, bro. Which DC was here. He would lose his mind if he knew what y'all were doing over there on the west side. You could pick up some, some, some good veg and then, you know, go do what you got to do. They shifted, you know, like, there you go. Bro, you sure have hit the flame with a bag of vegetables. That'd be so hard. I want to do it. What was the inspiration? What was the motivation? How did y'all link together on this shit? So me and Dadsman, we done known each other since we were four years old, bro. We went to pre-K together. Bro, that's so rare that you even see a black, black friendship last that long. Yeah, sir. Yeah, man. I mean, just growing up on the south side of the city of Atlanta, you know, like there's a black autonomy down there. You know what I mean? Like, these days we're like, we don't see white people. You know what I mean? Like the dentist that we just had, you know, the doctor, all that, you know, those are the people that we would see. So just knowing that things, you could achieve things and, you know, there were expectations for you to, you know, make it happen. Yeah. But, you know, just, the farm got started. I'm a master gardener. I've been doing that for about four years. Wait a minute, bro. What does that mean? Break that title down. So this is something that anybody that's interested in growing their own food or want to know more about agriculture and horticulture, every state in the United States of America has an extension office. And each part of that extension office from their land grant institutions, they do what's called a master gardener's program. So they teach people about how to grow their own food, about different landscape plans, about water management, about organics, about chemical usages and things like that. So probably about four years ago when I was still working at Home Depot, I burned through some vacation time to get the certification and, you know, I really learned that. I'm one of the few young African American men that's a part of their program in the state of Georgia. So that's kind of what got my start. From there, I was running our community garden over in People's Town right around the corner from here. And my boy reached out to me. Yeah. So that whole time I was more of a hobbyist. Both of us are ancestral farmers, so it's not like a first-time thing for our family. His family, they've been growing in McDonough for generations. My family been growing up in Virginia for generations. And then so, like, we came down here. Both of us worked with corporate and stuff like that. And I just always had my eyes on the out, you know, if that makes sense. Bro, look, are y'all niggas time travelers? Bro, you said ancestral farmers. I'm like, nigga. You done fucked me up with that one, bro. That's hard. Yeah, life for me, bro. Farming goes back in my family at least five or six generations. We look up our family's records. So we done found family going back to when we got bought from North Carolina to here in 1846. So, you know what I mean? Just knowing your history and just that piece of heritage and stuff like that. I mean, when my family grows food down in McDonough, that's land in my great-great-grandfather bought over a hundred years ago that, you know, the family still is on. That's dope as fuck, man. What y'all got in this bag right here? Man, go ahead, bro. Let's sit down for a little bit. What we got in here? We got some good, some good fresh produce. We got some work first, bro. Do me a favor. Stunt the fresh produce. Let's start off with this good lettuce. Come on, man. Harvest it today? Like I said, what? We like three miles from here. This is lettuce grown by black people. Look at that. Black people's lettuce. Hey, we got some black people's lettuce. We got off of Bankhead and Martin Luther King. Yeah. Barber Road, you know what I mean? That lettuce from the west side. Really, really, really in the city, really cool. And now, this is what I want to show you right here. So this is some of our fresh dry herbs that we do. So that's lemongrass right there that you can use in a loose leaf tea or if you like want to take a bath. Give me the time. You know what I mean? Give me the fucking time. Now, I can drink this and take a bath in it. Yeah, bro. It's good. It's good. Now, right here, this is the one that's going to set it off for you. We got this from a brother named Bill. If you're on Instagram, it's down south organic gardener. We got this honey right out of zone three. Bro, that's the most gangster honey. Yes, bro. The motherfucker got a feeling already, bro. Bro, this is black people honey. Yeah, bro. You were saying black honey? Big up the bill. You know? We will stunt on these, man. Fresh lemongrass. What am I sharpie at? You got to sign it. Can I get the sharpie? This too hard, bro. What else in here, man? Man, we got some kale in here for you. We got kale. It's the red rushing kale right here. See, it's a nice little good color to it. Let's see. And see, Dad's about to get cussed out by his wife right here. These are the candles that him and his wife made. So, like, these are what's called value added products. Let me see that. You know, we got some candles there. You know, we're going off here, too. Go ahead. Check that out. Okay. Check that out. Go ahead and spark it up. Okay. I'll see what you're doing. Spark it up. I like that. But these are what's called value added products. So, you know, most farmers just making money off of selling vegetables, you're not really going to eat like that. So, you have to be able to develop and make your own products. You know what I mean? To help sustain what you do. You know, besides just tea and candles, we also produce a high biscuits jam. And we also make hot sauce from jalapeno. Big up the shelves. High biscuits jam. But that's the thing, though. All that stuff is seasonal. So, you got to catch it while it's hot. It ain't high biscuits season. Not yet. It's on the way. Yeah, man. About two months. All right, man. About two months. We're going to pull up with some biscuits. You know what I'm saying? Some vegan biscuits. That's so fucking cold, man. Yeah, bro. What else in there, bitch? These ain't got a grocery bag full of good groceries. That's grown on the west side. Cherry bell radishes. These are good to top this good kale and lettuce with in your salad mix. Come on, man. Now, right in here, we also do herbs. So this is some cilantro. It's a little wilted right now. But when we talk about fresh herbs and the things that do for your body, cilantro is a good herb that helps remove, like, a lot of heavy metals and toxins and things like that. So let that little piece, when you're eating it sometime, and you know your body feel good, that's some of the endorphins that's released from when you use herbs. Talk your shit, bro. And then also, bro, what we brought you is a herb called mugwort. It's a common weed that people might call ragweed in the yard. But this is something that's good for, like, lucid dreams. They also use decoctions and make medicines from this for people that have mental illnesses and things like that. So when we talk about, like, farming and what we do, bro, we really are trying to, like, educate our community about, you know, plants and flora and fauna and things like that. Like, say for instance, bro, you might got on some cologne. Somebody got paid to travel, you know what I mean, to a foreign country to go to the jungle to find that little flower that smelled just that good to put in the cologne when they make the distillations. And so those are the kinds of things we want to expose our kids and our communities to. That's what I'm saying. Talk your shit, bro. Talk all love. So, yeah, that's pretty much what we got right now. And, like, right there at the farm, we do educational things. We have monthly volunteer days. So anybody is open. You can pull up. We have our produce available right there. We also partner with another black-owned business called the Better Buggy. They do delivery. So straight from the farm to your door, you know what I mean? You can get that from... Y'all on social media? Yes, sir. Y'all on social media. It's right here on the shirt. It's Gratitude Botanical Farm. We also have a web store. It's www.gratitudeatl.com. So any of the products that you want to interact with or you just want to sign up to keep updates and alerts going, you know, that's what we do. Yeah, man, I definitely... We're very community-oriented. No cap. I'm trying to keep up with how biscuits season. Hey, we're here for you. Trust me, man. We're going to hook you up with the Zobo T-Mix. So, you know, like, in Jamaica, in Jamaica they call it sorrel, but in Africa they call it Zobo. So, like, they bust it down with the lemongrass and the ginger, you know, and it's real good to drink. So we'll hook you up with your own three. Zone three honey, bruh. Zone three bees. You know what I'm saying? The queen is on three. She was in the hive. Bruh. Bruh. Hey, man, that's... That's a thing, bro, because, you know, it's people in our communities and our neighborhoods that might got cases and felonies and stuff like that. So you can't get a traditional job, but guess what? You send a head, make your own honey. You know how much, like, locally grown honey goes for it. They don't. That's why they need you to tell them. You know what I mean? Or, like, or when we talk about, like, you know, hey, bro, you want to transition out of selling weed? Like, you can start selling mushrooms. Like, legal mushrooms that people eat. You know what I mean? And you get them all per gram, then you would for selling weed and you ain't going to get case stuck. Come on, man. So it's just, like, little things like that that we trying to do to show people, you know, like, hey, you can look at this differently and excuse my language, but this ain't no slave shit. You know what I mean? This is more about empowerment because at the end of the day, what they did was they kind of finessed us. It was like, y'all know how to land and how to nature. And so they took that away and made us value these corporate, these paperwork, all that stuff. And then they went and took the land and the nature. So, you know, bro, that's some cold game. Right here who controls your food controls you. You know what I mean? If this last year showed anybody anything, like the prices went up soon as the pandemic hit, you know what I mean? Like, everything costs more. Folks are running out of lettuce. Folks are running out of chicken. Folks are running out of milk, you know? I ain't running out of shit. I'm plugged in with y'all. There you go. I'm plugged in with y'all. Hyperlocal. And we're going to have lights because we got these good, you know, soy candles and shit going on. Drop the social media one more time and let them know. And Gratitude Botanical Farm, y'all. Y'all can go to the website. It's GratitudeATL.com. Amen. For all the people who, you know, may want to collab on some more black farmers and stuff going to catch on to this, man. Oh, yeah. We definitely want to give a shout out to all our brothers and sisters that's out here doing this all across America from the big farms to the urban farms around the different communities. You know what I mean? Like, it really, this is something that's really going to change the game in America if we do this right. Yeah. Exactly. And we're just trying to, you know what I'm saying? You got to see it to be it, right? So, we're just trying to be it. That is. That's the perfect out right there, man. Ain't no more to say, man. Make sure you lock in so you can get you some, you know what I'm saying? Fresh lemongrass. You can drink it and take a bad friend. GratitudeATL. Gratitude. 85 South Shore. Black Excellent Spotlight. One more 50 asphalt. Shoot the pictures, man.