Thank you to Clark Semmes for this 10th installment of his 2,361 part series, Know Your Neighbors:

It’s spring, and Larry Kloze is busy. In addition to raising lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, turnip, cabbage, beet, and leek seedlings in his man cave/basement; preparing his 400-square-foot garden for spring planting; and creating fertilizer in his indoor electric composter, Larry is also working on vegetable gardens at City Hall, Towson University, and the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. Larry’s passion for gardening and gift for spreading his knowledge make his efforts seem less like work than the natural imparting of wisdom to a generation that is increasingly hungry for the skills that Larry has mastered.

Larry’s path to the garden has taken many turns. While attending the University of Maryland Law School, he moved to an unfurnished apartment on Holland Street in downtown Baltimore. On a quest for furniture, he wandered down to West Baltimore Street, then a center for used furniture stores. The experience piqued his interest and after traveling in Europe for a year he became an antiques dealer, enjoying the freedom and self expression that line of work offered. In the early 1970s, items like barber chairs or vending machines were suddenly gaining value as antiques. Larry began selling these items, first in on N. Charles street and later in Mt. Washington Village and the Nuts and Bolts building still standing near Whole Foods.

While the antiques business didn’t make Larry rich, he and his wife managed to raise five kids on a modest income by stressing self-reliance and simple living. It was from this philosophy that Larry’s fascination with vegetable gardening arose. Today, Larry’s gardening operation is a wonder to behold and a model of efficiency and waste reduction. All of Larry’s organic waste is fed into either his indoor or outdoor composter and ends up as rich soil for his plants. His gardening calendar begins on February 1st each year, when he plants his spring vegetable seeds under his indoor grow lights. On March 15th these plants go into the ground and his summer seeds replace them under the lights. On Mothers Day, these plants also go in the ground. By year’s end, Larry’s garden will have produced three pounds of produce per square foot or nearly 1,200 pounds of fresh vegetables. Never one to let anything go to waste, Larry cans what he and his wife can’t eat right away.

Today, in an era of climate change, economic instability, and general health consciousness, Larry finds that the vegetable gardening skills he has developed are suddenly in great demand. Urban gardens are popping up not just at the White House, but in vacant lots and school yards nationwide. The Buddhist philosophy that Larry studies and attempts to live by stresses the importance of teaching others. Hopefully the rest of us have the wisdom to listen.

Related articles:

Gardening and Healthy Eating Classes

Canning and Freezing the Summer’s Bounty—A How-To Class

Exciting Updates at Mt. Washington Elementary School

Know Your Neighbors – Cylburn Mansion

Know Your Neighbors – David Nemerson