May is starting off great with our tomato crop ready for pruning and trellising, most of our peppers in the ground, and in general our spring planting is steadily getting done. The flowers are blooming, our green dome and new youth garden are nearly complete, and in general the farm is starting to take shape. It looks like we’ll be having a beautiful, warm summer here in the Valley of Heart’s Delight. Once the ground is all planted, we’ll be furiously weeding for a month before the main harvest starts. We will be in a state of perpetual pruning and trellising of tomatoes, cucumbers, muskmelons and other crops.

This Friday, we’ll be starting the Downtown San Pedro Square Farmer’s Market, selling vegetables, plants, and t-shirts to our loyal customers. The downtown farmer’s market, along with our Saturday farmstand, are both very important sources of income for the farm, so please support Veggielution throughout the summer by buying your vegetables from us. We’re doing our best each week to provide you with the best quality vegetables at an affordable price.

However, I personally won’t be here to witness this work, since I’m newly married and taking the summer off to visit my family and various farms in Europe. Tommy Pierson will be acting as Interim Farm Manager, with help from assistant Will Chen. You’ll see the two of them out on the farm managing work along with the rest of the farm crew, and they’ll need all of the help they can get from volunteers like yourselves. Historically we begin to have lower volunteer attendance in July and August, which is a time that we need plenty of help as that’s the middle of our busiest harvest. Please consider making a commitment to volunteering during those hot summer months. If you would like to volunteer with a group you are part of, or know of community groups that might be interested in volunteering, you can schedule a group visit by contacting info@veggielution.org. We would love for groups of 10-20 to sign up for that late summer period.

Mark Medeiros

Farm Director

On the farm, we have been busy implementing our new design for the Youth Garden. Although a lot of our plants are still small, the garden is looking beautiful! If you haven’t seen it recently, come on down to the farm to walk though our mandala garden or to sit in meditation in our grape tee-pee. If you have a little one to bring to the farm, our Youth Garden is the perfect place for them to explore and learn about nature. On the second Saturday of each month, bring the whole family to participate in Family Day from 11-12:30pm. During Family Day, each member of the family is welcomed to join in our activities that encourages exploration, creativity, and learning in the garden.

We have also been making great head way in our educational programs outside of Emma Prusch Park. Although the school year is not over yet, we have successfully engaged over 400 students in outdoor garden education, linked to California science, language arts, and math standards. At McKinley Elementary, we have engaged students in garden lessons from kindergarten through 6th grade, and have welcomed the students to our farm through field trips. At Goss Elementary, we have helped create a strong school garden team comprised of students, parents, teachers, and staff. With our facilitation, our Goss Garden Team was able to raise enough funds and supplies to implement the start of a beautiful school garden. Over the summer, each garden will be kept up by the members of each school garden team.

Monica Lisa Benavides

School Garden Coordinator

Continue reading Stories From the Ground: Can You Dig It?

Veggielution is joining a global movement by building an Earthbench in our Youth Garden! We will learn how to make bottle bricks, build a foundation,  lay cob, and plaster naturally. We are teaching these awesome skills for free. If it is within your means, please consider a monetary contribution.

How to Participate:

1) Donate Materials

Veggielution will be taking donations of plastic bottles and clean, non recyclable plastic trash. We will also take donations of stuffed bottle bricks for our bench. Please drop off donations to the bins in the Youth Garden, or have a staff person direct you where to put your contribution.

 2) Join the Build

FOUNDATION BUILD AND BOTTLE BRICK STUFFING PARTY
-Friday, April 20th
9:00a-12:30p

COB LAYING AND BRICK LAYING
-Saturday, April 21st
9:00a-2:00p

BENCH PLASTERING & UNVEILING
TBA

learn more

We are excited to announce that we are hiring for 2 Silicon Valley HealthCorps positions. This is a great chance for you to spend your summer on the farm, contributing to and learning about food justice, getting dirty, and having a great time with great people. One position is focused on the Dig Crew, our high school youth program, and the other is focused more fully on the farm. Click here to read more!

This unforgettable event is just around the corner, have you bought your tickets?

April 13th, 2012 7pm – 10pm

$10 + 1  free food ticket online, $12 at the door

a·vant-garde

1. a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo
2. innovative and ahead of the majority
3. a group of people who invent or promote new techniques or concepts

Ignite your senses for a night of visualizing food and feasting upon art…

Devour a variety of farm fresh treats prepared by talented local chefs, and enjoy a silent art auction featuring farm-inspired art produced by visionary local artists. Avant Garden harnesses San Jose’s creative talent to support Veggielution’s growing Community Farm. We are pushing the boundaries of food justice by redefining our relationship with our land, our food, and each other.

Come experience a new way to think about food in our community, through the taste of our Spring harvest, and captivating visual artistry!

Kids ages 12 and under get in free! If you buy your ticket online we will add 1 free Food Ticket to get you started. Additional Food Tickets can be purchased for $3 each at the event. Event Tickets also available for $12 at the door.

Last Saturday, March 31 was our first annual Cesar Chavez Day Celebration. The rain changed our plans to have a giant workday with hundreds of volunteers and draft horses, but it still turned out to be a really beautiful day of community and friendship building. A spring ceremony and blessing was performed at 9am by members of Calpulli Tohnaleque, a local Azteca/Mexica Dance group and Elisa Alvarado of Teatro Vision. They were joined by Anne Marie Sayers and Kanyon Sayers-Roods, representatives of the Ohlone community and residents of Indian Canyon. At 7:30am the sun was shining through the scattered clouds, but a strong wind was blowing. By 9:30, the sky had closed up and torrential rain was pouring down on the ceremony, along with about 60 brave volunteers and community members who joined outside the dance circle. Afterwards we were all sopping wet, and huddle together under the outdoor kitchen. There we spent the rest of the day socializing, eating food and making tortillas from scratch using the maiz mourado we grew from scratch. A few volunteers braved the rain and headed out to plant native plants and planting out our newly designed Youth Garden.

Continue reading State of the Farm: April

In January Veggielution started a great new program called Las Promotoras. The Promotora model involves teaching and training women from the community to become leaders of their community, and address important issues through their leadership.

We are fortunate to have 4 amazing women from Veggielution’s neighborhood, devoting their time to Veggielution’s mission. At Veggielution, our Promotoras are playing a key role in the organization by advocating, outreaching and engaging the community from the ground up. Our Promotoras specific role at the farm is leading “Cooking Matters” which is a series of cooking and nutrition classes offered in Spanish. The goal of the program is to promote healthy eating habits in the community. During the cooking and nutrition classes Las Promotoras educate their community about healthy cooking habits, organic, local and seasonal vegetables and providing guidance in nutrition. Moreover, Las Promotoras relate their experiences to participants about how they are learning to make healthy choices in their own families. Everyone gets to learn how to make healthier choices for their families. For instance, Luz Maria , one of our Promotoras said: “I’m cooking more fresh food at home. I used to go out with my kids all the time. Now, we are spending more time at home eating healthy food and I’m saving money that I can use it to get other things for my kids”.

Las Promotoras have a unique ability to reach into their networks of friends, family, and neighbors. Currently, the Promotoras are running two cooking nutritional classes with 34 participants. The participants are being introduced to “My Plate,” USDA official nutrition guidelines, different ways of cooking seasonal and fresh vegetables in their daily meals, how to read food labels, how to choose low fat meals, and effective planning for grocery shopping.

“The class helped me to know more about organic food, seasonal vegetables, and food labels. Right now, I have more interest in buying fresh vegetables and healthy food. I have a garden in my house and I didn’t use the veggies before but now I will cook every day with my vegetables and I will educate my family about healthy choices. I know It will be hard but we have to make different choices.” -Graduate, Sep, 2011.

Continue reading Stories From the Ground: A Delicious Class – Sí se puede comer saludable!

This unforgettable event is just around the corner, have you bought your tickets?

April 13th, 2012 7pm – 10pm

$10 + 1  free food ticket online, $12 at the door

a·vant-garde

1. a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo
2. innovative and ahead of the majority
3. a group of people who invent or promote new techniques or concepts

Ignite your senses for a night of visualizing food and feasting upon art…

Devour a variety of farm fresh treats prepared by talented local chefs, and enjoy a silent art auction featuring farm-inspired art produced by visionary local artists. Avant Garden harnesses San Jose’s creative talent to support Veggielution’s growing Community Farm. We are pushing the boundaries of food justice by redefining our relationship with our land, our food, and each other.

Come experience a new way to think about food in our community, through the taste of our Spring harvest, and captivating visual artistry!

Kids ages 12 and under get in free! If you buy your ticket online we will add 1 free Food Ticket to get you started. Additional Food Tickets can be purchased for $3 each at the event. Event Tickets also available for $12 at the door.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Cesar Chavez Day event! The rain changed our plans but it turned out to be a really beautiful day of community and friendship building. The only real drawback to the rain on Saturday was that we had work planned for 200+ volunteers and only a little of it was done – that means we got 500 hours of work we’re behind on. We’re now into the summer planting season so we have peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, beans, summer squash, tomatillos, and a variety of other crops that need to go in the ground. Though the tractor did the majority of our bedshaping their is more of that to do by hand, along with irrigation setup, and a bunch of other tasks on the farm.

So if you have time this week, please come out to our workdays:

Tuesday – 8:30-12:30
Wednesday – 2pm-6pm
Thursday – 8:30-12:30
Friday – 8:30-12:30 – we’re adding back Fridays now that we’re into April
Saturday – 10am-12:30pm

Get ready for an action packed day celebrating Cesar Chavez and the Unite Farm Workers. Please dress warm, and be prepared for some rain.  The first 200 participants will receive an awesome and free Cesar Chavez Day T-Shirt. See you Saturday. Learn more here