I’m Just Here for the Plants: An Inside Look at a Greenhouse Rave

If you were to rank the COYOTE worker-owners based on who is most likely to be found at a rave, I am the first to admit that I'd probably come in last. If I'm up late, it's because there's a chance to see an octopus at a night time low tide, or there's a live stream of an international conference on the archaeology of tattooing. I spend my weekends caring for over 150 houseplants. I have a porcupine quill solely for the purposes of cross-breeding hoyas. I'm the person my friends text when they find some weird slime in the woods. You get the idea.

But when one of the co-founders of HuitlaCo Mushrooms (a fellow worker-owned co-op) emailed COYOTE to tell us about their upcoming greenhouse party, I knew that my time to rave had arrived. Dress warm, and wear closed-toed shoes, the organizers wrote in their messages to attendees. "This is a working greenhouse. It’s a beautiful, raw space, but that means it comes with real-world hazards (uneven floors, equipment, sharp corners, and debris)." I had been training my whole life for this, perhaps.

When I arrive (at 8pm, even though the party flyer said it started at 6pm, because our resident party expert Estefany told me "nobody gets there on time, it probably won't get good until 10pm, but I know that's past your bedtime") the vibes are decided un-ravelike. I may not be an expert in party-ology, but I am fairly sure that lovely acoustic guitar performances are not common at raves. I allow myself to enjoy them nonetheless, because tonight is a night of rule breaking. What a thrill.

The greenhouse is lined with vendors selling clothes, art, fragrances and more. In the back artists are actively working on several large paintings. A few attendees rave about the tiramisu made with mushrooms. The dance floor is largely empty, but the low couches and tables in the back are full of folks I recognize as fellow plant people sitting, chatting, and sipping hot chocolate. Whither the rave? I wonder to someone nearby. "Don't worry," they tell me, "it's still early." I check my watch. It is nearly 9pm.

And so I begin to snoop on the plants. The space itself has disappointingly few at the moment — mostly potted plants clearly brought in for this event. A leggy Strelitzia, some happy-looking Epipremnum aureum (pothos), a recently propagated Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant) and some tall, cramped Dracaena trifasciata (snake plant) by the DJ stand. At the margins, in the neighboring spaces, I spy buckets full of Sempervivum tectorum (hen and chickens) and what looks like it could be Carex tumulicola (foothill sedge, a native grass to the Bay Area) but I can’t get close enough to verify without trespassing into someone else’s property. I must remember: I am here to rave, not to identify plants. 

When the acoustic performances end, the co-founders take the mic to speak — a task that proves challenging over the noise of conversations. A few sentences into co-founder Kevin Perdomo's barely audible speech about the power of community, one of his louder collaborators grabs the mic and shouts to the back, asking for quiet. When the room settles, Perdomo breathes. "Thank you," he says, "Now I can speak how I like to speak. I don't really like to raise my voice; that's something about me."

He goes on to share facts about aquifers and red wriggler worms and soil regeneration. I can't be sure of it, but I suspect that this may be the only rave in human history in which the room is told to be quiet so a soft spoken scientist could talk about the power of fungus and how many species of aerobic bacteria and fungi live in the bellies of worms.

After Perdomo, others speak about the plans for the space and the goals of the party — part blessing, part fundraiser. The farm is entering the next stage of development, and by April, they plan to build out the 2,400-square-foot greenhouse we are in with several rooms where they'll grow hundreds of pounds of mushrooms (the culinary kind, not the psychedelic kind). Funds from the party will also be used to send a delegation of East Bay land restoration workers to a conference in Colombia. Some of those delegates have recently formed a DJ collective, and they would be at the turntables that night.

"We kind of have this tagline: ‘If it's not soulful, it's not strategic,’" DJ Dbranca tells the crowd. "Can I hear y'all say that?" The crowd dutifully chants it back several times.

And then, the beat finally drops.

It is 9:45pm when the rave babies start to really trickle in: all lollipops and fuzzy boots and pleather. A furry's tail wiggles to the music. The dance floor fills, and someone offers me a little plastic plant to clip to my hat. I take it. Look at me, I think, raving!

Surveying the space, I marvel at the spread. Carhartt and REI next to pleather cargo pants and fuzzy earmuffs; fishnets dancing with people who definitely knew what plants fall into the Costaceae family. United by the oontz oontz of it all. It doesn’t matter that the cutie in the crocheted flower top probably doesn’t know a thing about that native grass growing in the bucket over there. It is too loud for me to try to tell her about it anyway.

Unfortunately, the high is short-lived. At 10:15 p.m. the music stops and someone takes the mic to announce that everybody has to vacate the premises within the next 20 minutes. Apparently the landlord had not actually agreed to allow this party after all. (The organizers later sent a message explaining that "we are subleasing the greenhouse  and while the person we are renting from approved the event, there had been some miscommunication; the owner of the entire property was not properly informed, and he was not happy.")

As folks trickle out, they talk about where to continue the party. The lake? A warehouse over by Gilman? "I am way too high to get on a fluorescent BART car right now," someone says, while vendors scramble to pack their goods and leave. Meanwhile, the real party baddies are just showing up, wondering what is going on and being turned away. I hear one co-founder assuring someone that they would offer refunds.

It is, obviously, not how the organizers wanted the night to end. But I will confess that I feel as though I got the complete rave experience. I can’t wait to tell my plants all about it.