Despite a few showers there is plenty to do on the farm, and if you have time your help would be appreciated. See you later!

Mark

Check out this superb video from 48South7th, a project of the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, describing Veggielution Community Farm’s history, programs, mission and plans to grow in the future.

The video includes an overview of Veggielution’s mission from co-founders Amie Frisch and Mark Anthony Medeiros. Jessie Nichols and Sally Neas describe the Veggielution high school youth program, now called Dig Crew, and you’ll hear from a few past Dig Crew participants. Sharon McCray, board president of the Emma Prusch Farm Park Foundation and a Veggielution supporter from the beginning, describes Santa Clara Valley’s rich agricultural history, and how Veggielution is taking Silicon Valley back to its roots.

Raffaella Cerruti made her way from Italy to the U.S. for love, but little did she know that she would also fall for Veggielution Community Farm. Raffaella started volunteering her time with the farm last November and is currently our Administrative Intern. With a Phd in Agro-Food Economics, Raffaella is an absolute asset to our farm. She assists the farm with grant proposals, our business plan, the farm budget, and entering data. She also helps organize our monthly Family Day.

There are many things about the farm that appealed to Raffaella. As a mom of a 2 year old, Raffaella likes her son to see people actually working the land. She has taken her son to many other farms but none of them were as hands on. She wants him to see people engaged in what they are passionate about. Another big draw for Raffaella is the fact that Veggielution is a part of a larger movement of urban community based agriculture. She had never been exposed to a Community Farm previously in her work with agriculture. The idea of hundreds of volunteers coming out and making a farm run as a community amazed her.

Her curiosity about Community Farming soon led to her committed involvement with the farm, and we are ever grateful to have her working side by side with us today. With her outstanding hard work and dedication revealed, it makes us all wonder where the farm would be without astounding volunteers like Raffaella Cerruti.

-Julia Lang
Outreach and Education Coordinator

Here on the Central Coast, we are generally really spoiled with great weather. I remember those warm days back in January, where it seemed the winter had disappeared and we were on our way to a very early spring. March came and reminded us that a good, torrential downpour at this time of year is not all that unusual for our area – that’s why all the old-timers have told us over and over again that sometimes its better to resist that urge to start the spring rush early and wait until the weather warms up in April to begin seeding corn and beans, and transplanting the tomato and squash families. Thankfully, thats what we did and we didnt have any early tomato starts struggling in a flooded field.

Though those few weeks of heavy rain set us back a bit, our seedlings have had plenty of time to grow and they’ll be ready for planting in optimal conditions the 2nd week of April. For the next few weeks, we’ll have the most beautiful, glorious weather of the year so please make time to be outside. The soil is completely saturated with water, and with the strong sun the grass on our hillsides and the plants in our field will have all the energy they need to grow extremely fast.

Even though its been raining, we’ve found ways to stay productive on limited workdays, potting up hundreds of tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, building tables for our greenhouse, painting signs and tidying up the farm. Now that the suns out, in the next 10 days, we’ll be making a big push to get the back half of our acre ready for a whole lot of planting. Our commitment to using hand labor means that we’ll be large groups out there shaping beds by hand, topdressing with compost donated by the City of San Jose, installing irrigation lines and finally transplanting and seeding.

But we know that our whole volunteer community is going to go nuts now that Spring is in the air, and we expect to see big groups of you at every workday from hear on out. So enjoy the weather, and see you at the farm!

—Mark Anthony Medieros
Farm Manager and Veggielution Co-Founder

Check out this great video produced by our multimedia expert and volunteer Sylvia Ulloa. That was a beautiful day—and it looks like the weather will finally let us plant that huge area these draft horses prepared!

As a part of the Facing History and Ourselves project and Voice of Witness, Notre Dame seniors gathered and compiled oral histories on topics as diverse as hope in spite of clinical depression, the current state of the public school system, teenage pregnancy and resilience, and the value of cultural exchange through immersion trips.  The collection, titled “Unheard Voices”, was then presented at the MACLA art gallery downtown as a part of the First Friday Gallery Walk.  Veggielution was mentioned in two oral histories relating to food and farming.  ”Both Sides of the Plate” featured a humane butcher as well as local vegan restauranteur Ryan from Good Karma.  Good Karma supports Veggielution through produce sales and donates food scraps to our worm bins each week- thanks for the recognition Ryan!  Veggielution co-founder and project director Amie Frisch was featured in the project “Veggie Solution”.  A reading of Amie’s personal history followed a short documentary, which can be seen below.  Enjoy!

Veggie Solution by Marissa Martin

Both Sides of the Plate by Jennifer Piercy and Corinna Rodriguez

Check out this slideshow from Veggielution Community Farm’s 2009 groundbreaking expansion, when we first planted The Acre, courtesy of the Contra Costa Times. It was an amazing ceremony, including Aztec dancers who are coming out to the farm again soon. We’ll tell you when that’s coming up.

Hopefully we’ll be doing more groundbreaking later this year!

Veggielution is looking forward to the 17th Annual Spring Garden Market, put on by the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County. This event is a huge hit every year, and gets packed early because that’s when you get dibs on the choicest varieties. It will be Saturday, April 2, from 9 am to 2 pm, at History San Jose, located at 1650 Senter Road, San Jose, 95112. For more information about the event, visit mastergardeners.org/sgm or call 408.282.3105.

We’ll be out there selling some of our strongest, lushest vegetable starts—including tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, squash, and beans—to raise funds for our farm operations. Our hoop house is full of them right now, so come down to the plant sale and get started on your own summer garden.

This will be an all-day plant sale with more than 300 varieties of summer vegetables on sale—tomatoes (80+ varieties), peppers (100+ varieties), beans, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, lettuce, other vegetables, herbs and flowers for $3 each. There will also be gardening talks, more than 40 vendors selling crafts and plants, a Sustainable Gardening Showcase, and more. Come out, and say hi to the Veggielution crew if you do!

Sign up now for Veggielution’s Backyard Chickens workshop—it will fill up soon because raising chickens is more and more popular and this is a great deal for a workshop to get you started.

The workshop is Saturday, March 26, from 1:30 to 3:30 pm in the LeFevre Barn Classroom. The $20 fee for this class covers materials costs, and also allows Veggielution to put on free and bilingual workshops throughout the year. Click here to register.

Raising chickens at home comes with many rewards, and is a great way to be more connected with where our food comes from. A few hens can keep your family supplied with fresh eggs that can come in a beautiful range of colors, with thick sturdy shells, and vibrant yolks that stand up tall. We’ll go over selecting breeds and where to buy chicks, designing a coop and run, raising your chicks, and keeping your chickens safe, healthy and happy.

This will be a hands-on workshop that includes a visit to Veggielution’s chicken coop to hold hens, gather eggs, see an example of coop design, and participate in some chicken care. If you’re interested, we can also arrange to order and raise some chicks for you too. This workshop will be led by Jessie Nichols, Veggielution Youth Program Coordinator and mother hen to our flock of 36 chickens since they were chicks.