Shop Like a Tastemaker With Local Photographer Jessica Ballerstein

Kevin Espiritu has never been one for convention. To pay for college, he didn’t rely on scholarships or his parents to foot the bill: instead, he played online poker and used the winnings to finance his education. Post-college, when Espiritu had graduated from playing online poker to playing video games with his brother, he felt the need to challenge himself to come up with a hobby that would take him and his brother outside and away from their screens. That challenge turned out to be gardening.“I grew up in San Diego in the Rancho Penasquitos area. I really did not grow up gardening, so it took until I was in my early twenties to start growing my first plant,” he says.

But, why gardening?“I gave my brother skateboarding, surfing, as hobbies that we could have picked up and for some reason, we gravitated toward gardening. I don’t really know why each of us chose that, but it’s just sort of just what happened,” he says.Espiritu says he started out by documenting his green-thumb journey online as a blog. As his audience grew, he expanded into YouTube and other social platforms, and eventually, an e-commerce site.

What began as a hobby has now blossomed into Epic Gardening, a one-stop-shop for growing guides and products—whether you’re looking for advice on propagating orchids or you want to learn how to plant pecan trees. And when you need to buy gardening supplies, Epic’s online store has just about everything you’d need to become a master gardener. Their bestsellers include the product that started it all: a galvanized raised garden bed. “I had featured [it] in some of my content, and everyone wanted to know where to get it. I decided, instead of telling you, why don’t I just offer it to you since no one seems to know how to get it. That’s how it started,” Espiritu says.Epic Gardening also sells seed trays, grow lights, planters, and 650 different varieties of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. With nearly 2.5 million YouTube subscribers, 955k Instagram followers, 2.7 million TikTok followers, 673k Facebook followers, and 81k Pinterest followers, Epic Gardening’s social media presence has blossomed into influencer status.We asked Espiritu for his favorite must-have products that he can’t live without, whether in the garden or everyday life. Here are his current faves:

OluKai ‘Ohana Men’s Beach Sandals

$75

“I’m a flip flops guy, despite my best efforts to move to more sophisticated shoes,” he says. “[These are] easy to toss on in the garden and I like a more rugged style because I beat mine up like crazy.”

Gozney Dome Outdoor Pizza Oven

$1,999

“Completely changed my cooking game. I make fresh sourdough pizza and roasted garden-fresh potatoes and veggies in this a couple times a week in the summer. Great for parties, too!”

Felco Hawkbill Knife

from $24

“The hawkbill style knife blade makes pruning really easy, with a pulling motion towards the body. [It] makes short work of my tomato and veggie pruning tasks, along with harvesting greens, etc.”

Birdies Garden Products Raised Garden Beds

from $99

“The original metal raised bed from Australia, loved by hundreds of thousands of gardeners around the world and proudly carried by us here at Epic Gardening. Aside from the gardening use case, it’s my favorite product of all time because it made Epic Gardening what it is today. Very grateful!”
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Kiersten “Kiki” Rich, also known by her travel influencer alias, “The Blonde Abroad,” relates with her cadre of Instagram followers (513K to be exact-ish) by sharing her own life story.“You can travel alone,” she says, empowering other women to take flight and follow their wanderlust—even if it means letting go of their current status quo.

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A post shared by Kiki | The Blonde Abroad | Travel Blogger (@theblondeabroad)

A native of Temecula, she now calls San Diego home with her partner and small son, a big change after four years as residents of Cape Town, South Africa. Despite the romance of being an ex-pat, she says, “When my partner and I decided to put our roots down, San Diego was a pretty easy choice. It’s just such an amazing home base.”But don’t think motherhood has put the brakes on her exploration. She still frequents San Diego International Airport, passport in hand and baby in tow. “We took our first flight [together] when he was, like, two-and-a-half months old,” Kiki says.After 11 years of blogging and cataloging her adventures, Kiki has visited more than 71 countries and taken more than 500 flights (that’s nearly a million miles spent airborne!). She hopes that, for readers and followers, “my blog—and maybe my life—is a reminder that you can change. Change is good. Change is what keeps us growing.”

5 Must-Have Travel Accessories

FujiFilm X-T4  

This camera is Kiki’s preferred extra pair of eyes, but “I have a lot of resources on my blog [to help you] find the perfect camera,” she says. This digital Fujifilm lets you point and shoot like a pro with motion stabilization and face recognition for video and stills. Prices vary

Calapak Packing Cubes  

“I like that CalPak has usable sizes and shapes,” Kiki says. This five-piece set with 17 different color options offers breathable mesh and organizing labels to make packing (and unpacking) a breeze. $68

Monos Carry-On Pro Plus  

This chic spinner with a sturdy shell offers a TSA-approved lock and a place to slip a laptop up to 15 inches. Kiki emphasizes that “lightweight, high-quality luggage [is] worth a splurge.” $315

Lo & Sons Claremont Bag 

Kiki recommends this “stylish purse that also fits a camera.” Start your own influencing empire with the right gear to stash your DSLR (or your passport) in a flash. $220

TRTL Travel Pillow  

According to travel brand TRTL, this scarf-style pillow is “scientifically proven” to prevent stiff necks and sore shoulders. Kiki loves it for long flights because it’s comfortable, packs down well, and is easy to wash. $50
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The creative eye behind Object, “an intercultural platform that promotes Mexican design,” Verónica Hernández has a style that draws a connection between spirituality, functionality, and comfort. As the owner of a Tijuana-based, brick-and-mortar-slash-online store carrying styles from Mexican designers, Hernández doesn’t sell anything of which she’s not personally a fan.

“I’m anti-classic brands,” Hernández says, opening up about her aesthetics, adding, “I look for smaller brands that the entire world doesn’t know about.” She also hosts Mexico Curated, a series of guided cultural tours in Baja California, meaning that whatever she puts on her own back should also be comfortable and elevated enough for bigger crowds and varied energies.

This philosophy lives on at Object—a space shared with Hernández’s second business, a boutique real estate firm called 9 Lamat—and in her wardrobe, as well. When she finds a good item, like, say, her favorite perfume made in Mexico, she sticks to it for the long run since she’s tried it and is “100 percent convinced” by it.

“If I find something I like, chances are I won’t change it. These are things I use every day that make me feel good,” Hernández says.

Journeying Inward

Inward, by Yung Pueblo, is a book Hernández carries around, especially when traveling from Ensenada to Tijuana. The book, which has “existential themes,” was given to Hernández by a friend. She likes to pick a random page and see what message the book has for her that day. From $15.80.

Unisex Scents

For All Folks—a Mexican brand carried at Hernández’s shop—makes a unisex perfume stick with 100 percent essential oils that can be shared by couples. She frequently re-stocks in-store and at home because its essences, aside from being aromatic, have healing properties that give good energy. “It smells good and it makes you feel good,” she says. From $43.

Slot Anywhere

A piece of furniture she calls “thin, versatile, and special,” the 3-Level Platform by La Metropolitana is adjustable and can be used to store everything from dishware to books, advises Hernández. She thinks it’s a good investment piece that can easily be moved from room to room if you’re feeling creative. From $928.

The Ultimate Staple

During a sourcing trip to San Francisco in search of items to add to her store, Hernández discovered UZI NYC, a clothing brand selling mainly oversized tunic dresses. The “star product” of the brand, as she calls it, is the versatile black Box Dress—she has three. $143.

Keeping it Local

A Tijuana-based artist and friend of Hernández’s, Jaime Ruiz Otis painted “Atrás del Cerro Azul,” an abstract piece in which he explores his personal life. Hernández made Otis’s work the first painting she ever bought. “I fell in love with the painting when I saw it. I even took it to Italy when I lived there,” she says. Contact for pricing.

A Hat for All Seasons

“I’m always wearing the same hat,” Hernández shares about her Jipi-Japa Ko Hat by Lordag Song. Another item she carries in store, this made-to-order, hand-woven hat has withstood the test of time thanks to its flexible, artisanal fibers that can be molded to fit anyone, even years later. From $115.

Andrew Ütt, executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Art of San Diego (ICA), formerly the LUX Art Institute, is a rare breed in the visual art world.

Though intensely passionate and loquacious regarding the finer points of curation, Ütt eschews pretense. He’s approachable, affable, and, most importantly, he gets it: Art can be hard—especially in a city where tan lines can act as social currency and sandy feet are kudos to a day well spent.

Can the likes of Baldessari really compete with the beach? Ütt is optimistic but aware of the cultural challenges.

His calling card as a curator is his proclivity for studio visits with artists, which have clocked him hundreds—if not thousands—of hours interviewing makers and getting to the core of their visions.

“I think something we’re missing in San Diego that has a huge potential is to just surround ourselves with art,” he says. “We’re getting there.” Through his guidance, ICA’s dual locations in Balboa Park and Encinitas offer that chance to be surrounded: Both locations feature art classes and exhibitions from artists-in-residence.

“I think if San Diego wants to be an arts destination, and wants to be known as such, we need to be thinking as a global city and not as a local city,” he says.

A prodigal San Diego son himself, Ütt returned to the city after a post-art school stint in San Francisco and years abroad in Europe and South America. These travels, combined with his 20-years of experience in curation and arts organization, make Ütt seem like the most likely candidate to take our city to that lauded echelon. Tinged with altruistic ambition, he admits, “It’s my responsibility to bring in artists that are doing interesting things.”

Ütt hopes that with ICA’s broad reach throughout the county he can make art accessible, informative, and, yes, challenging. “I’m a true believer that if someone doesn’t like art, then it’s working,” he says, “and that’s a good thing because then they start to be more aware and cognizant of the things around them and the ideas that are being presented.”

He’s not asking you to give up the beach, just to give art a chance, too.

After an impromptu pull of a Lucifer card from a nontraditional tarot deck, holistic interior designer Rachel Larraine says, “Every time I get that card I’m always like, ‘What am I going to get tempted to do?’”It’s a fitting question for someone whose life’s work is concerned with harnessing human desire. Larraine, who describes her style as “eclectic with a touch of seduction,” found her way to a conventional design career through unconventional practices. After all, it’s not like there’s a blueprint for building what she calls a “holistic” interior design business.Following the cancellation of a large-scale resort project she had been co-designing, she muses, “I had an opportunity to jump out on my own, so I did it.” 

Doing things her way meant getting certified in Feng Shui and becoming a Reiki master. “I was sort of torn between these worlds of spirituality and interior design,” she says. Suddenly, the obvious became apparent: she’d do both.Spirituality has always been part of Larraine’s milieu. “I remember buying my first amethyst when I was 10 at the Oktoberfest in La Mesa,” she reminisces, adding that her spirituality started “coming even more alive” after her oldest son’s birth in 2010. Providing more than just aesthetics, Larraine offers a curated array of design services, which includes kitchen remodels and energy healing sessions—she’ll even lay a crystal grid in the foundation of your home.All of these practices blur the lines between the material, emotional, and metaphysical. Describing her design ethos, she says, “For me, it’s about creating a space with someone’s spirit and mind and body—all encompassing.”