with my mom. They’re so romantic, so beautiful, so magical.” The draw was hard to ignore, especially compounded with late nights at the bar and a strong need for a healthier lifestyle. However, to fully pivot and trade pouring tequila for a trowel, he would have to monetize. That didn’t take long. “I would start propositioning people I knew had big yards and tell them I wanted to cultivate my craft,” he says, adding that he knew he wanted to be self-taught like many master gardeners before him. There’s a nuance to the practice, and, much like a craftsman knows his tools, a gardener needs to know his soil, compost, microclimate, water, and even where the sun rises and sets.
wanted but I wasn’t patient enough to be a gardener,” Jesso Jr. exclaims with a bright smile. The musician is known for his magnetic personality and long list of collaborations with music icons such as Dua Lipa, Adele, Orville Peck, Justin Bieber, and Harry Styles, earning him a Grammy for songwriter of the year, the first award of its kind. Cameron and Jesso Jr. reminisce about the space when they met, which, back in 2020, was an arid patch of dirt and home to a lone peach tree that Jesso Jr. planted with grander ambitions. Cameron laughs that it’s remarkable the tree even survived, while simultaneously giving credit to the fertile ground that exists in these hills thanks to the tall deer grass that sprouts every spring. If you look close enough, California black walnut and oak trees are native to the area, filling the soil with carbon and a variety of nutrients each time they shed their leaves, creating more organic matter.
Plants in the raised beds they built at the start already had enough to dine on, but Cameron sourced food scraps from a number of restaurants to build a layer of compost and healthy topsoil to fix nitrogen. Quickly, novel crops like bitter melons, Queen of Malinalco tomatillos, and red currant tomatoes were thriving there. Often, the best results come from the most authentic relationships. Naturally, Jesso Jr. draws the connection to music. “Horace was just playing different notes and I said, ‘Dude, follow that!’ Because I know that feeling in other areas,” he says of the freedom Cameron was experiencing with what he was growing. A natural curiosity for all things new and unique saw Horace ordering from seed stores like the Missouri-based Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, which is committed to genetic preservation by empowering everyone from hobbyists to regenerative farm stands to save and
Humans are also a part of that equation, and with something as personal as their property, it’s important to understand that someone with skills isn’t just a hired hand. There’s a relationship to consider, a symbiosis for someone like Cameron who will want to ensure that errant produce stickers don’t end up in the compost or to watch out for rogue neighbors spraying pesticides. Through a series of trials and errors, he was well on his way to attracting the perfect partners.
CHANCE A beautiful bouquet from Khatib in 2019 led to a handshake with Grammy Award-winner Tobias Jesso Jr. and the three immediately hit it off. High atop the Silver Lake artist neighborhood in Los Angeles, Jesso had purchased a three-story home with an old hunting cabin from 1905 in the back and plenty of land to cultivate. “I knew what I PURCHASE OF
ABOVE AND RIGHT: CAMERON INSPECTING HIS COLONY. THE HIVE IS THRIVING WITH MANY HAPPY BEES WHO DON’T HAVE TO TRAVEL FAR FOR A VARIETY OF NECTAR AND POLLEN. LEFT: EXAMINING ONE OF THE 14 DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF TOMATOES HE GREW THIS YEAR.
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ISSUE 01
HARMONY IN THE GARDEN
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