I’m from Cojumatlan, Michoacan, Mexico. I came to San Jose because My husband was here. I have 3 kids (7-5-4 years old). In my free time I like to spend time in my garden with the flowers and vegetables. I’m a participant of La mesa Verde program. Also, I like to play with my dogs and the canary in my house.

I became involved with Veggielution trough an invitation from Yonara. Yonara spoke  in a community meeting where she invited everyone to get involved with the farm. My kids and I went to a family day, then we went as volunteers. I like to buy organic vegetables at the farm stand.

Yo soy de Cojumatlan, Michoacan, mexico. Yo vine a san jose, ca por que mi esposo estaba aca. Tengo 3 hijos-7,5 y 4 anos. in my tiempo libre me gusta pasar tiempo en mi jardin con las florez y vegetales. Yo soy parte del programa de La Mesa Verde. Tambien me gusta jugar con mis perros y mi canario. Yo empece a ser parte de VL a travez de una invitacion por yonara en una junta comunitaria donde ella explico el programa de la huerta. Mis hijos y yo fuimos al dia de la familia y despues como voluntarios. Me gusta comprar vegetales organicos en el puesto de verduras.

Continue reading February Volunteer of the Month: Rosa Garcia

Cesar Chavez Parents working in the garden

Hello Dears I am Lupe, Veggielution’s very own School Garden Organizer. I have been working towards building two amazing school gardens on the East Side of San Jose. These gardens will serve as powerful educational tools for local children. These projects are at very different phases.

For the first project we are working with Somos Mayfair and La Mesa Verde on creating community support for building garden beds at Cesar Chavez Elementary. I have been working with Parents whose kids attend Cesar Chavez for the past 8 months. Together we strive to start a school garden.

Every Thursday we get together for 2 hours and garden at Veggielution. Working on the garden together helps cultivate a love for gardening, and further the parent’s and their children’s drive to learn more about gardening and good food. It is wonderful to work with this group of parents. They are very hard working and grateful for the opportunity to get access to healthy, quality food, which they receive from Veggielution. Their children have developed good self esteem from coming to the farm and exploring, learning how to tend the land, and finding new ideas about the world from their experiences at the farm. The kids even ask the parents if they can go to the farm more often.

Continue reading Stories from the Ground: Lupe is Rallying the Community

Saturday February 4th: 1230-2:30pm

You’re all invited to our Winter Volunteer Appreciation Lunch! It will be held at the community Meeting Hall, near the main entrance to Emma Prusch park. We want to acknowledge all of the hard work you veggielutionaries do for the farm. Even if you are a new or one time volunteer, come enjoy a wonderful lunch in honor of you!

For any questions please email: yonaraa@veggielution.org

Even though its raining cats and dogs tonight, the workday will be on at 10am Saturday, as well as the farmstand! Come on out to do some farmwork or buy fresh veggies.

Julie Mount first came to Veggielution with friends volunteering through Our City Forest. Years later, Julie is still here and continues to volunteer.

She works as the graphic designer for the Santa Clara Library system but loves getting her hands dirty. “I started volunteering because I was suffering from a dirt deficit,” Julie told us. “Where I live, I don’t really have a place to garden. I love where I work, but sometimes have nothing concrete to point to at the end of the day. I volunteer so I can point to rows of veggies and say, ‘I had a hand in that.’”

The reward of hands-on labor and hard work has kept her coming back, and her contributions are much appreciated. At Veggielution, “I found more than dirt,” she said. “I found an amazing community of people committed to their neighbors and the land.” She enjoys the personal connection to other engaged people with the same values of simple, local food and the agricultural history of this valley, and she says it contributes to her positive outlook.

When she began volunteering, she found herself fond of weeding but now claims to be more well rounded. She enjoys the variety of tasks at Veggielution: spreading mulch, seeding, planting, and harvesting.

Being a San Jose native, she finds it spectacular that there are committed people who love and tend to the land tucked underneath a major freeway. Seeing Veggielution transform a heretofore-wasted land into a fruitful and sustainable effort that produces such abundance has been, she says, “a powerful anti-depressant.”

Samantha Clark
Veggielution Intern

Staff, volunteers and the farm took a much deserved rest for a couple of weeks over the Holiday break. We’ve crossed into 2012, with seeds purchased and a plan to grow a lot of food and improve the farm over the next year. The upcoming work is exciting and endless, and we know that a lot of you are ready to join us out here this coming Saturday. In a week or so, we’ll begin propagating tomatoes and eggplants under lights, as well as other spring crops. The lack of rain is a bit alarming, even though some years the rain doesn’t really show up until February. We would welcome another wet spring, but at this point I’m anticipating that its gonna be a warm, dry year, which means we’ll have an early planting of summer vegetables in early March, and an early harvest.

Farmer’s in the old days would be really worried right about now. But the fact that we can continue farming as usual even in a drought year reminds me of how spoiled we are, since we don’t depend as much on the rains to make our crops grow. Instead, we have reservoirs and aqueducts, metals, plastics and electronics that help us irrigate our crops. When you’re striving to be as sustainable as possible, it’s important to reflect on these bigger picture issues. It reminds you that good soil conservation practices, mulch and growing appropriate crops in the right season is the responsibility of all good farmers and gardeners.

Mark Medeiros
Farm Manager

One of the greatest advantages of our California climate is that we can grow vegetables year round. And this winter our record breaking dry and warm December has kept our winter vegetable crops growing steadily. Leading up to the holidays, with a surge in volunteer support, we busily potted up young seedlings in the greenhouse, turned compost piles, finished constructing greenhouse tables, and added large amounts of nutrient rich compost to our fields.

The month of December also saw an increased amount of food available at our weekly Saturday farmstands, something we hope will draw more regular customers to the farm. December marked the end of a very successful year at Veggielution, including nearly 23,000 pounds of food grown by our community volunteers!

With the New Year upon us and spring not too far around the corner, there is a lot of planning to be done. New crop maps will allow the farm to operate smoothly, with consistent successions of crops starting in the spring and lasting all the way to next winter. We will finalize the curriculum for our highly anticipated workday leader training class that will begin in February. Starting our tomato varieties this month on heat-pads and under fluorescent lights will result in three foot tomato plants ready for planting come late march. The green house will quickly become overloaded with late winter and early spring crops too. A busy January will undoubtedly be the jump start we need for another successful year on the farm!

Tommy Pierson
Asst. Farm Manager

 This holiday season, we’re giving you a new way to support and invest in Veggielution. In addition to volunteering, you can now join us in a special way by buying a membership. Veggielution always strives to recognize and give back to our volunteers and supporters, and the benefits of these memberships are our way of saying, “Thank you.” We recognize that these are trying times for many people, because we see people struggling firsthand. We serve the entire community, providing access to healthy, sustainably farmed vegetables, regardless of income, age or ethnicity. We hope you’ll help us provide them with even more access in 2012. Please, dig deep this year. These would make great gifts for yourself or that special Veggielutionary.

Click here to become a member

Continue reading Announcing New Veggielution Memberships

We’ll be changing the workday schedule a bit during the holidays, giving our hardworking farm crew a break after a busy summer growing season. They’ll need to re-energize for some winter workdays, when we could sure use your help out at the farm!

December workday cancellations:

• All workdays are cancelled between Dec 20th and Jan 3rd.