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.

About the class:

Come on over to Veggielution and learn the art of hand salve making. We will demonstrate the process of infusing herbs into oils, and adding these infusions to beeswax to make a great healing and moisturizing hand salve. Keep your hands soft and happy during the winter season, or use them as a Hand made gift for the holidays.

About the Facilitator:

Sarah Linn Gallardo has previously taught at both Hidden Villa and Full Cirlcle Farm. She now serves on Veggielution’s board of directors. Sarah has developed a captivating curriculum that delves into the healing properties of the herbs and flowers used in the salve recipe to the step by step process of how to make the salve itself.

 Date: Saturday December 17th 2011

Time: 1:30-4:00pm

Spaces Available: 25

 Cost: $15.00

 Location: Veggielution Community Farm: Picnic tables next to the Lefavre classroom

647 S. S. King Rd95116

 For more information contact: Julia Lang (818) 634-8068 or JuliaL@veggielution.org

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The San Jose State University Environmental Studies and Communication Studies departments, with support from the SJSU Office of the President, are putting on another great talk that Veggielutionaries are likely to enjoy.

Jeremy N. Smith, a writer for Gourmet and Saveur and author of Growing a Garden City, will share the surprising, inspiring stories and message of his book, in which 15 main characters he calls “the new faces of local food”—a troubled teen, a grandmother of 20, a homeless shelter chef, a single mother, a food bank officer, an entire first grade class, and more—transformed themselves and their neighborhoods through the intersection of local agriculture and community. Veggielution works hard to create that intersection of local agriculture and community, and we hope you’ll find this interesting and join the discussion.

Named a “Top 10 Book on the Environment for 2011” by Booklist, Growing a Garden City is a story about a diverse group of people who created an “Agriculture Supported Community” by growing food together. Sound familiar? The discussion will focus on how to grow this sort of community movement in San Jose’s own neighborhoods, schools, and city.

When: Friday, November 4, 2011 from 12 to 1 pm

Where: Clark Hall 240, San Jose State University, downtown San Jose
For a map of the campus, visit www.sjsu.edu/map. Clark Hall is a big building near San Fernando and Seventh St., on the north side of the campus.

For more information, contact:  annemarie.todd <at> sjsu.edu or rachel.omalley <at> sjsu.edu