BOYLE HEIGHTS, Calif.  – Who needs a Whole Foods when you can grow all your own fruits and vegetables? In Boyle Heights, artist Jose Ramirez grows everything from bananas to papayas and then creates art inspired by his garden.

It’s a perfect day in Los Angeles so artist Ramirez is surveying his garden for fruits to harvest. It looks like a forest, but everything here is edible. From plums to peaches to pears and pluots, he grows everything, new and native to Southern California.

“One of the reasons why I garden is because it's getting back in touch with the Earth and where we come from,” said Ramirez. “There’s nothing like being out here and putting your hands in the dirt and eating fresh fruit that’s growing in your garden, tasting it straight off the tree.”

“Mmmm, that’s really good,” said Ramirez as he bites into a pluot.

Raised in El Sereno, he lives in Boyle Heights.

In 2014, he bought the empty lot next to his house and decided to turn it into a 7,000 square foot private garden. Since then, he’s planted countless fruit trees and grows food year-round.

An elementary school teacher by day and artist by night, he finds inspiration from working in his garden. 

“We don't talk about L..A. as being a place where you can grow stuff, but if you look back in history, this place did have a large variety of different sorts of edible plants and trees and fruit trees that used to thrive in this area,” said Ramirez.

Most evenings, he paints in his studio located in the basement, cooled by the natural Earth. And even though his garden features in much of his work, it’s the Los Angeles skyline that’s most depicted in his paintings. 

“Downtown is an important thing for me to paint in a lot of my paintings, because I want people to know where we're situated,” said Ramirez. “Wherever you go in L.A., whether you're in the Eastside, the Westside, south side or north, you always get these really picturesque views of Downtown L.A. and it's something that keeps me grounded.”

Grounded, like his garden. Today, he is exhibiting a solo show at the Central Library.

Called In His Own Soil, he’s exhibiting a series of paintings celebrating his garden, love for his city and the people who inhabit it.

“It’s a very rewarding, relaxing, exciting thing to do, to put your hands in the soil, feel the sun on your face, hear the birds, hear the helicopters as well, but escape and be in a place that’s peaceful and beautiful,” said Ramirez.

In many ways, galleries are just like gardens.