Mud Baron’s Plug Mob hits the south lawn of Los Angeles City Hall

Due to a track meet at Pasadena’s John Muir High School last Saturday, the normal monthly seedling giveaway hosted by Muir Ranch director Mud Baron instead took place on the south lawn of Los Angeles City Hall last week.

Baron’s Plug Mob -- a blend of seed-plug giveaway and flash mob -- usually happens at the high school’s Muir Ranch on the third Saturday of the month when school gardeners get the first choice of free plants.

But at the giveaway Friday on the people’s lawn, Baron said, everyone in L.A. County was invited to take home some of the tens of thousands of tiny ornamental and organic seedlings, including broccoli, peppers, tomatoes and geranium. He’d been to the donating growers in San Diego four times in the last five weeks collecting trays of unsold seedlings, the last time braving the Oceanside fires.

Armed with popsicle sticks, magic markers and plastic bags, the Plug Mobsters were first prompted by Baron to shout out “Thank you Eric!” to the mayor. And then they began plucking out plugs from the scores of trays arranged on the grass.

There were school gardeners, master gardeners from community gardens, urban garden activists from nonprofits and dozens of backyard gardeners who just happened to be passing by on the way home.

“I’m a sucker for sunflowers,” said Marnie Sehayek, biking to Elysian Valley from her job at the Hub LA in the Arts District. She had stopped when she saw the bunches of beautiful cut flowers also being given away.

Jonathan Galindez from RootDown L.A. carefully stacked edible plugs in a bike trailer for his two communal gardens in South L.A., one at Thomas Jefferson High School. Joanna Larios from Olvera’s Street’s La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, two blocks away, also had a rolling cart and was looking only for ornamentals to bring in pollinators to her urban orchard, plopping the tiny plugs in used espresso cups.

“I’m of the belief that every kid should be able to kill a tomato,” said Baron, watching the crowd descend on the seedlings. “Ideally these are for kids at schools but there’s always extra. Everybody eats.”

“I also have ghost peppers,” he announced loudly to the crowd. “Take at your own risk. This is the hottest pepper in the world and not appropriate for schools.”

Next month’s Plug Mob will return to Muir Ranch on the third Saturday of the month.