Saturday Workday

Join us this Saturday for our workday from 10am-12:30pm, followed by a potluck! Bring a dish to share–homemade or challenge yourself and buy food locally produced! We need more volunteers on our Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday Workdays as well, so learn more information here.

Low-cost Farmstand and Starters for Sale

Every Saturday from 10am-2pm we have a low-cost farmstand. We will also be selling basil, eggplant, and pepper starters for $1.50!

Can’t make it? On Fridays from 9am-2pm we sell at the San Pedro Square Farmer’s Market too in downtown San Jose!

Farm Box Program Launch – Only 8 Sponsor Shares Left!

Making Farm Fresh Food More Accessible to You!

Hurry and sign up for one of our 10 Sponsor Shares to buy produce directly from our farm using the “Community Supported Agriculture” model in which you partner with us to purchase a share of our summer harvest.

• When? July 12, 2011 to November 1, 2011 for 17 weeks.
• Payment? Pay for 17 weeks at $30 per week
• Food? Vegetables will vary each season, and there will be enoughfor a family of 4 for 1 week.
• Our Sponsor Shares support our Family Shares program, which is reserved at a reduced price for 20 families that live in the 95116 or 95112 zip code, or are enrolled in the Cal-Fresh (Food Stamp) program.
• Participants will pick up their food at Veggielution each Tuesday from 1pm-7pm.
• Find out more information here and sign up at farmbox@veggielution.org or call 408-758-8EAT.

This week’s blog was written by one of our Summer Youth Leaders, Molly Cashman.  Molly was a Dig Crew member last summer, has served as a Workday Leader facilitating community volunteer, and has returned to serve as a peer-mentor to our current Dig Crew.

This is our second week here at the farm this summer and we have already done and learned so much that will be a great foundation for the rest of the summer.  We started off last week with games to get to know our other Dig Crew members and I can already tell that we are going to have a great community here in the Dig Crew.  Every Thursday, the Dig Crew is in charge of harvesting and washing all of the food for the farmer’s market and the farm stand.  So far, we have learned how to harvest cilantro, onions, green onions, garlic, rainbow chard, kale, beets, and radishes.  On Friday we went to the Downtown Farmers Market where we got to taste mouth-watering samples, bond with our fellow Dig Crew members, talk to marketeers and customers, and even take part in a cherry seed spitting contest.  We visited Veggielution’s stand and saw all of the produce that we had harvested the day before, so we were all super excited and proud to see our produce looking beautiful and ready to be sold.  With “Carrot Cash” from our Cooking Matters class, we bought awesome fruits and veggies- strawberries, potatoes, chard, blueberries, peaches, tomatoes, nectarines, onions, and garlic to name a few.  The day at the Farmer’s Market was a great way to see what farmer markets have to offer and many of us are already planning to go back on the weekend.  After a great two weeks, I’m extremely excited for the rest of the summer of farming, harvesting, learning, making new friends, cooking, and having fun!

Workday Volunteers!

We need all the help we can get on our workdays on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday!  If you are interested in going above and beyond, we can train you to become a workday leader, and help us with workdays, low-cost farmstand, or farmer’s market stand!  We also welcome groups to volunteer!

Wednesday 8:30am-12:30pm & 2-5:30pm.
Tuesday and Thursday 8:30am-12:30pm.
Saturday 10am-12:30pm.

Free Tomato Plants at the Farmstand

We’ve planted all the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers we will this year, so the hundreds of plants we have now are extra. We’ll be giving away free 4″ tomato plants this week to everyone who visits our Saturday Farmstand from 10am-2pm, and everyone who volunteers. Limit 4 free plants per individual/family. We’ll also be selling pepper, eggplant and basil starts for $1.50 each.

Farm Box Program Launch – Making Farm Fresh Food More Accessible to You!

We are proud to announce our very first Farm Box program, which will start this summer. This is your chance to buy produce directly from our farm using the “Community Supported Agriculture” model in which you partner with us to purchase a share of our summer harvest. Individuals or families can subscribe to the Farm Box program from July 12, 2011 to November 1, 2011 for 17 weeks for either a Sponsor Share or Family Share. Each week, participants will receive a large box with a variety of vegetables that are currently available on the farm.

With a Sponsor Share, individuals or families pay for 17 weeks at $30 per week for produce enough for a family of 4 for 1 week. We only have 10 Sponsor Shares, so sign up today! Our Sponsor Shares support our Family Shares program, which is reserved for 20 families that live in the 95116 or 95112 zip code, or are enrolled in the Cal-Fresh (Food Stamp) program. Each Family share costs $15 a week, and subscribers must meet eligibility requirements. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Farm Work Schedule this week

We had an epic rainy Saturday together this past weekend – over 20 volunteers braved the rain and help us transplant. This was a very critical step in making sure we don’t get behind schedule, but this week the fast pace of work continues and we’ll need extra help Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday

Wednesday June 8 / 8:30am-12:30pm & 2-5:30pm – In the morning we’ll be clearing some beds, pruning and trellising tomatoes. Later in the afternoon, we’ll be direct seeding new crops and working on irrigation.
Thursday June 9 / 8:30am-12:30pm & 2-5:30pm – We need to harvest for the farmer’s market first thing in the morning, which will take several hours. Afterwards, we’ll be seeding our “Three Sisters” Intercrop of blue corn, dry beans and winter squash out in the new acre, along with more irrigation and pruning work and possibly planting watermelons towards the end of the day.
Saturday – We need all the help we can get! We didn’t completely slow down last Saturday, but there is a huge list that needs to be accomplished this week, and if we had 60 volunteers this weekend, it wouldn’t be excessive. We’ll hopefully be seeding our large winter squash crop, weeding a ton, mantaining the greenhouse and further developing the children’s garden, amongst a whole lot of other things.

Free Tomato Plants at the Farmstand

We’ve planted all the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers we will this year, so the hundreds of plants we have now are extra. We’ll be giving away free 4″ tomato plants this week to everyone who visits our Saturday Farmstand from 10am-2pm, and everyone who volunteers. Limit 4 free plants per individual/family. We’ll also be selling pepper, eggplant and basil starts for $1.50 each.

The farmstand will be cancelled today but the workday is on. For anyone who wanted to buy from the farmstand, feel free to come back to the farm and will pick what you want right out of the field. Also, plan to come out next week, since we’ll be giving away free tomato plants to everyone who visits the farmstand! After today we’ll have planted all the tomatoes that we will this season. Limit 3 per person.

May marked the culmination of our Spring Afterschool Dig Crew program.  Our wonderful group of teens spent 10 weeks at the farm cooking, eating, working, and building a strong positive community.  The backyard demonstration garden is a special project of the program and is now successfully planted out with two rows of strawberries, a row of potatoes, and flourishing spring garden boxes.   Each week, Dig Crew members took home harvest from the farm and from their personal plots.  With pride and a big smile, Emmanuel took home his first harvest of chard, carrots, and more radishes than you can shake a stick at.  After one of our nutrition workshops showing the amount of sugar in different drink choices, Dig Crew member Lani reported back that she has sworn off sodas.  Way to go!

One of the most powerful days of the program was developed in partnership with UC-Santa Cruz students and Dr. Flora Lu.  Through the Environmental Justice course, students led a whole day of activities around Food Justice.  We defined important words like food desert, food sovereignty, and empty calories, examined the seeds and effects of environmental racism, made maps of food resources in their neighborhoods, and discussed disparities in food access in San Jose.  This day will serve as a platform for more discussion about how food justice relates to our mission here at Veggielution.  We are eagerly anticipating the start of the summer program next week, with 15 youth returning to the farm for paid job training positions.  Stay tuned!

— Jessie Nichols

Dig Crew Coordinator

Hi All,

June is here and we’ve completed the first two weeks of work on our new acre. In our short history, each year that we’ve expanded our farm its involved a huge push by large teams of volunteers to make our new land ready. We’re in that time again as our newest field needs a lot of work since it hasn’t been farmed for decades. If you’re available, please come to the farm prepared for heavy work as we’ll be shaping and topdressing beds by hand,  clearing rocks and weeds, and setting up irrigation over the next few days. If all goes well, we’ll be planting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, corn, beans, squash, and other crops this Saturday, but there’s a lot to get accomplished for us to hit that goal.

We need a whole lot of extra volunteers on Wednesday and Saturday especially. Now that June is here, we’ll be switching the Wednesday Workday to the mornings, but this week we’ll take volunteers for both the morning and afternoon shifts in order to get more accomplished. I’d love to see a big crowd of volunteers on Tuesday and Thursday morning as well, but if you can’t show up then make sure to be ready for a massive day on Saturday. The farm will appreciate every extra pair of hands that we get this week – some of the tasks we have in front of us can only be done by groups of 10-20.

Wednesday: 8:30-12:30am and 2pm-5:30pm.
Tuesday/Thursday: 8:30-12:30am
Saturday: 10am-12:30pm

After this week, there will still be plenty to do all season, so think about making a commitment to help out at the farm one day a week through September. As the student crowds die down for the summer, we are hoping to build leadership in our volunteer community in order to make an even more productive and efficient farm for the future. You can play a big part!

Mark

Join us at Thursday’s (4/21) workday from 8:30 to 11 am, when Veggielution will celebrate Earth Day on Thursday with NBC Bay Area. The NBC Bay Area morning crew and host Christina Loren will be live on the air to highlight our unique urban farm and strong community as a prime example of what Earth Day is all about. We’ll be doing our regular workday thing—harvesting, continued work preparing our summer crops—and the farm will be live on the air to promote our workdays and many other programs that work to promote organic farming, environmental conservation and open space, education and food justice.

You can sign up in advance if you’d like via this link or just show up to the workday as usual. More information about what to wear and what to expect on our Volunteer page.

Veggielution’s Food and Art Fundraiser

April 15th, 7pm – 10pm, $10

Tickets available 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

Prepare to have your taste buds tickled and your eyes enchanted…

Devour a variety of farm fresh treats prepared by Laura Stec, local author and chef extraordinaire, plus chefs Liane Herrick, Mike Borkenhagen, Jessica Rene Krause, and Joe Gaudet, and enjoy a silent art auction, featuring farm-inspired art produced by visionary local artists.

Veggielution is redefining the boundaries of our urban landscape, reshaping it with the ideas our communities share and with the hard work our volunteers contribute. Our efforts are centered-around building a community to address the most compelling environmental, social, and health issues of our time. Most importantly, we are redefining our relationship with our land and our relationship with each other.

Avant Garden brings together this catalytic, creative energy to the heart of downtown San Jose, at Kaleid Gallery for a night of celebration. Come enjoy the talent of our emerging artists and the taste of our Spring harvest. Become a part of our growing community and grassroots movement that challenges the status quo and is at the forefront of food justice.

The evening will unfold at KALEID Gallery
88 South Fourth St. (at San Fernando)
Downtown San Jose

Read more about the Avant Garden artists and chefs.