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What's Growing On?

It feels like summer with two of our sunflowers blooming already. Our garden cat Boycott is loving the changing season and we do too. Read on to learn what we've been doing in preparation for summer crops!

Left photo description: A happily blossomed bright yellow sunflower.
Right photo description: Boycott (garden cat) peeking his eyes over a garden bed.

Our greenhouse is filling up with maturing seedlings that we started in February & March. We started transferring tomato seedlings into larger pots so that they can grow stronger root systems. Other plants we're excited to watch grow in the greenhouse include sweet chocolate peppers, lemon cucumbers, eggplants, and many types of beans!!

Left photo description: Separating multiple baby tomato plants' roots from each other.
Right photo description: Transferring a 6" tomato plant into a larger pot to grow even bigger!

So many strawberries! We have a whole garden bed dedicated to strawberries that have started to produce fruit in April. Did you know strawberry plants are super prolific? Mature strawberries produce baby clone plants called "runners." We found many runners along the edge of the bed that we saved to give to our volunteers to plant at home!

Left photo description: A dug-up strawberry baby clone ("runner") found on the pathway.
Right photo description: A picture-perfect unripe white strawberry next to a bright red strawberry.

Hot Compost

For the past 3 months, we’ve been adding food and garden scraps to the middle and rightmost bins. We’re finally putting a cap on those and letting them finish breaking down. All new scraps will now go into the leftmost bin. The photo below shows the three sequential stages of composting from left to right, the left being the least broken down and the right being the most broken down. THANK YOU to everyone who have been using our compost window!!

Photo description: Wide angle view of our three hot compost bins. Leftmost bin is a quarter filled with unbroken down food and garden scraps. Middle bin is filled with light-brown 50% broken down compost; internal temperature is 140F. Rightmost bin is filled with rich dark brown 80% broken down compost; internal temperature is 110F.

We anticipate producing much more compost than we actually need at the garden, so we built a large compost storage unit that will eventually be open for the community to pick up to use in their garden! More details to come soon :)

Photo description: Pouring down finished compost into our compost storage unit.

Event Recap: Poetry, Performance, and Protesting with Plants

Over 60 students and community members joined us at the garden for a fun evening of poetry and live music. 20 students stayed into the night to learn about Guerrilla Gardening and to beautify our curb space outside the garden.

Photo description: Loui Mekelburg and Daniella Garcia performing during open mic.

Photo description: Poetry busker Rebecca Lee's poem featuring our garden. It goes:
"In the shaded garden of my memory, there is always someone else. In this garden today, I am surrounded with poetry and food and sound waves. I see friends and mentors and I wonder where Boycott the cat is. Perform a card catalogue poem. We share the space. I am here to conduct. Mostly, I'm here to absorb. I think other people are too."

Event Recap: Boba & Birdhouses

Over 20 students stopped by the garden to de-stress and paint birdhouses while sipping refreshing milk tea on a hot Friday morning.

Photo description: Bright blue-pink ombré painted birdhouse by one of the participants.

Upcoming Events in May

Have some refreshing iced tea while shredding your schoolwork for composting! Hosted by the A.S. Board of Directors.
Monday, May 9 11:00AM

Shred your schoolwork for composting!
Thursday, May 12 & Friday, May 13 9:00AM - 12:00PM

Ongoing Spring 2022 Semester Events

Volunteering - last day is May 6
Compost Window Hours - effective until end of May
Drop-in Hours - effective until May 19
Summer hours start June 1st. Stay tuned for the full schedule.

Opinion form - what do you want to see in the garden?

We are located at 372 E San Salvador St. San Jose, CA 95112
Spot white fencing across the Dining Commons between 8th and 9th St.

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CCCAC Community Garden · Diaz Compean Student Union 1st Floor Suite 1550 · San Jose State University · San Jose, CA 95192-0001 · USA