Jenny Mosley says: Just came back from watering the garden... I saw NO squirrels and NO chewed on vegetables. The whole place smells like pepper. Great job Jen !!

July 15 - Would You Like Pepper With That?

[To deter squirrels from harvesting cucumbers and egg plants on their own, the gardeners found these choices: fox urine (too expensive), moth balls (too dangerous around children), or pepper.]

Jen King says: This afternoon I deposited almost 6 pounds of pepper in, on, and around the garden. Probably could have used another 3 pounds or so. I have to go back to Costco tomorrow so might get a bit more. If anyone wants to kick in some $$ I've spent about $25 so far and will spend another $12 tomorrow. All that pepper made me sneeze now we'll see if it has any affect on the squirrels :-)

July 7 - Green Beans Abundant in the Garden

Susanne says: Yesterday I picked 18 lbs. of green beans and 15 lbs. of cucumbers and summer squash in the MPUUC garden. I brought those vegetables to our local homeless shelter Sunrise Village.

I want to be sure that all MPUUC members know they can pick vegetables at any time in the garden to bring home. So if you are in need of a dinner, instead of heading down to Safeway, please feel free to swing by the garden. Currently you will find green beans (look closely some are bush beans and grow low), summer squash, cucumbers, basil and the first peppers. Tomatoes and eggplant will be coming soon.

For those not able to pick themselves, we will place veggies on the Garden Share table on Sundays as well.

June 22 - Potato Harvest

Susanne says: We stopped watering our potatoes about 2 weeks ago and they are ready to be harvested. We could use some help digging them up on Sunday morning, June 27, 9-10 am. Anyone is welcome, bring a shovel and gloves if you have. You get to take home what you harvest; what is left will go on the Garden Share table.

June 6 - After Weeding

Doesn't it clean up pretty? And that corn on the left is definitely moving higher in the warm weather. California summer is here!

May 30 - Thriving Corn and Potatoes

May 23 - Sunday is a Garden Workday

See how our garden grows! Susanne and Michael are hard at work.

P.S. We're going to need that fence. Something much bigger than a snail enjoyed much of the flowers in front of Susanne. Only the cosmos were spared.

May 21 - Community Garden Update

Jen King says: The garden is looking great. Things are growing well. We already have some flowers blooming and a few strawberries turning red. The snails have munched the lettuce, but everything else is looking good. Now we just have to keep it that way. Susanne and Michael Joss will be heading up work days after church every Sunday in June. Please participate if you can. Also, see below for tasks that can be accomplished before or after church or whenever you have time during the week:

Weeding: Volunteers have been watering the garden regularly and things are growing rapidly - including the weeds. We need to weed the actual garden beds, but we would also like to clean up the weeds outside of the garden - particularly in front of the garden and a 1-to-2-foot border all around the outside of the fence.

Finishing the Fence: We have all the pickets we need to complete the fence, we just need to get them painted and put up. Valerie Stewart's husband has offered to put them up for us so we need to get them painted. The pickets, plastic ground cover, sawhorses, paint brushes, paint, and everything else you need to paint pickets is located in one of the bins to the right of the garden (as you face it). It's all covered with an orange tarp. The best way to paint the pickets is to put the plastic ground cover down, put the saw horses on it, lean the pickets up against the saw horses, pick a color, and paint away. Please be sure to clean the brushes as best you can after you're done. There is a bucket for this purpose in the bin. Everything can be cleaned with water. If you have any questions call Jen King. We have a fair amount of paint, but could use some yellow if anyone has any.

We've come a long way and it's looking great, but we can't stop now. Many thanks to all who have put time in especially: Susanne, Michael, Valerie, and Bruce.

May 10 - Community Garden Meeting

Jen King says: There will be a meeting to organize on-going care of the MPUUC Community Garden Sunday, May 16, at 9:00 am in the garden itself. We would like to have as many people attend as possible. If you would like to help out with the ongoing care and maintenance of the garden, but are unable to attend the meeting, please contact Susanne or Michael Joss at susejoss at hotmail.com or michaeljoss at sbcglobal.net.

Also, a reminder about our new Garden Share Program at MPUUC: Do you have extra fruit or veggies from your back yard that you can't use? Continuing through the summer, a Garden Share table will be available during the coffee hour after church. Bring your extra fruits, vegetables, herbs, seedlings, plants, flowers, etc. that you want to share and place them on the table. Anyone can take whatever they'd like and think they can use from the table and make a donation in the box provided. This is a great way to share in our congregation's gardening wealth and help support Mission Peak at the same time!

May 4 - Need Help Watering the Garden

Susanne Joss says: With this nice warm weather we need help watering our newly established garden. The plants are very tender at this young age and need a bit of tending to. While the irrigation system is making progress we are not quite ready to hook it up. If you are available on Friday or Saturday please let me know. This will only take about 15 min.

Tuesday: Susanne
Wednesday: Jen
Thursday: Janelle
Friday: ?
Saturday: ?
Sunday: Lorna

April 28 - Join Mission Peak's Garden Share Program

Jen King says: Do you have extra fruit or veggies from your back yard that you can't use? Or do you not have the time or space for your own garden, but would love to have more locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables for your table? Well, we've got the solution for you!

Starting Sunday, May 2, (and continuing through the summer) a Garden Share Table will be available during the coffee hour after church. Bring your extra fruits, vegetables, herbs, seedlings, plants, flowers, etc. that you want to share and place them on the table. Anyone can take whatever they'd like and think they can use from the table and make a donation in the box provided. This is a great way to share in our congregation's gardening wealth and help support Mission Peak at the same time!

Susanne Joss says: After this past weekend's beautiful blessing, the garden is off to a good start.

Thanks to our seedling-raising volunteers, we planted a variety of tomatoes and squashs, cucumbers, lettuce, cilantro, corn, basil, some early peppers, carrots and beans. I do believe that Janet and Drew's YELLOW PEPPERS will turn into wonderful GREEN BEANS!

Our flowers are Calendula, Cornflowers, and Cosmos. Along the picket fence we have sweet peas and sunflowers.

We also started a bed of strawberries.

The watering schedule for this week is:
Monday: Susanne
Tuesday: Susanne
Thursday:Justine
Saturday : Jen
Sunday: all

Please feel empowered to plant on your own and what you would like to see grow there.

The keyhole bed when you enter still has a lot of space. Some of the hot-loving vegetables like eggplants and peppers need more time to grow first before transplanting.

Things we need:

• A new garden hose - make it a long one so we can reach the entire garden
• Sunflower seeds
• Organic compost to top off the strawberries
• 2 bags of top soil for the corn, this bed has low fill and 1 bag of compost (any amount of compost is welcome!)

Things to do:

• As we water, more rocks will become apparent. Take them out. I just throw them under the mystery trees in the back.
• Break up some of the clumps of dirt in the beds.
• Finish the paths with newspaper under, then wood chips.
• Irrigation
• Fence

April 18 - Planting Festival (Postponed by Rain from April 11)

Rev. Joy Atkinson leads a blessing of the garden ceremony after church on Sunday, April 18.

April 4 - Last Garden Workday Before Planting Festival

The garden looks great and with a few improvements this weekend April 4th , we will be ready for the planting festival on Sunday, April 11. This Sunday after church we'll be working on:
- adding drip irrigation
- finishing pathways
- preparing the remaining areas for planting
- finishing the fence/gate

The gardeners have been busy building raised beds and even erecting an attractive and color fence.

March 17 - Community Gardens Help Reduce World's Food Problems

On the San Jose Mercury News editorial page this day, Les Kishler of the Los Gatos-based nonprofit Community Gardens As Appleseeds, wrote an op-ed article. It starts:

The world is faced with a difficult dilemma. Available food supply and access to this supply are out of sync. For the poorest, this is a matter of survival. For others, it is a matter of economics and land use. The right amount of food in the right location is the goal. Community gardening can be an important part of the solution.

Read the rest of it here.

According to the March 11 Wall Street Journal, the sustainable agriculture/local food movement in the Bay Area is having to compete with everything from developers looking to put houses on high-quality Bay Area cropland, to local governments looking for more revenue in these lean times.

Environmental Concerns

Concern for the environment is one of three areas of outreach that our congregation agreed to focus on. (The others are Social Concerns and Mental Health.)

Our UU seventh and sixth principles speak to our concern for the environment: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part and The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.

Our most recent effort on the part of our concern for the environment is to start a community garden. Read on:

Join Us As Mission Peak's Community Garden Takes Off!

Many Mission Peak members have long been interested in gardening and now, thanks to the generosity of our hosts, the Methodists, we can join in this seasonal journey of growth together.

March 14, 2009 - Community Garden Day - Rototilling and Raised Beds

The Methodists have generously offered us the use of the land just east of the Cole Hall parking lot for our garden. Two planning meetings have already been held and we are lucky to not only have a large number of dedicated and energetic MPUUC volunteers, but we can also count a majority of the board members of the newly created LEAF (Local Ecology and Agriculture Fremont) organization here in Fremont as members of Mission Peak.

LEAF has generously offered to help us get our garden going as well as assisting with donated materials and volunteers. Several work days have already been scheduled (see below for tentative details). Other work days will be added as necessary. Please bring your shovels, rakes, hoes, wheelbarrows, gloves, brown bag lunch, and enthusiasm and join us after the service.

If you have supplies (wood, chicken wire, drip hose, plants, seeds, decorations, tools, etc.) that you would like to donate, please contact Michael Joss at michaeljoss at sbcglobal.net. If you're interested in helping with garden-related children's activities, planning the Planting Festival, or helping out in other non-physical labor intensive ways, please contact Jen King at jenking at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.

1. February 21 - Strip down the current garden (saving what we can to be re-used), string the outline for the garden we have planned.
2. February 28 - Rototill the garden, shave paths, build fence.
3. March 14 - Build, fill, and compost raised beds; put in irrigation.
4. April 11 - Planting Festival!! This will be a festive day for the whole congrega-tion complete with a blessing of the gar-den, activities for the kids, food, music, and LOTS of celebrating as a community. Please plan on joining us!

Back to Top