It’s that time of year when – for many of us – scouring seed catalogs for potential garden additions stands in for actually getting our hands dirty. While you’ve got time (and not dirt) on your hands, you might want to consider organizing a method to share your eventual harvest right in your own community. Just imagine back fence trades – your abundance of zucchini in exchange for some of your neighbor’s prized turnips – a little bit larger in scale. Call it vegetable commerce if you will.
Sonia Martinez and Kim Hoffman, both part of the leadership team for Slow Food Hawaii, envisioned a way for backyard gardeners to barter their abundance with others in the area. Share the Harvest is the result.
Modeled after the successful Freecycle program, interested parties sign up to become a member of Share the Harvest and swap, trade, or barter anything that is food related. Fresh produce, baked products, preserves, dairy products, or even plants and seeds are fair game. Members who have an abundance send in an ‘offer’ listing what they have available and what they’d be interested in trading for. The message goes out to the list and anyone can respond to the offer. The individual parties determine what would be considered a fair trade.
For instance, I had way more egg cartons than my girls could fill, so I posted them on Share the Harvest. A woman responded that she’d love to have them, and offered me a dozen eggs, some sweet potatoes, and sweet potato slips in exchange. Deal!
The Share the Harvest program is based on the Big Island, but there’s no reason you couldn’t start a similar program that reaches out to your surrounding community. What a great way to diversify your pantry. Instead of figuring out what to do with 300 pounds of pears, you can preserve half that and trade the other half for something that you just don’t seem to be able to grow in your garden, saving you from long winter months filled with complaints of “pears again?” Win, win.
You called my name?
Mahalo nui loa for this timely post. We have had some interesting offers and trades at Share the Harvest…meeting new people in person is a bonus… One member initiated Food Swap / Pot Luck events to which other members in her area come, bring excess produce/plants to trade and also a dish to share with others. We’re planning on expanding these events to the entire membership….and we’re looking forward to new members in 2012.
Thank you, Kris!
Sonia recently posted..Picadillo a la Criolla
Sonia,
are you active on Gather? if so, we’ve crossed paths there, good to see you here as part of Kris’s community too.
and Kris, this is a fine idea, and thanks for writing about it.
Yes, Kerry….I am! Small world. Good to see you here.
Sonia recently posted..Picadillo a la Criolla
Loved this post. Sounds like an amazing program.I’m going to look around and see if anything like this is happening in my area.
If it isn’t, we can help you set one up, Jane
Sonia recently posted..Picadillo a la Criolla
Sounds like an excellent program. I think we are trying to organize something similar around here.
Sounds good!
Sonia recently posted..Picadillo a la Criolla
This is a great idea. Overabundance is one thing that holds me back from a lot of gardening.
If you would like to set one up in your area, we can help you!
Sonia recently posted..Picadillo a la Criolla
That’s really an awesome idea.
Very cool idea. I’m no gardener, but I am interested in getting involved in our local CSA. It’s not active in the winter–other than online–but come spring, I’m excited to delve in.
How great – not only from the food perspective but for building community.
apples for bananas, apples for bananas….
What a great program! I’m all for the barter system. Wish it was used more, especially in cities, like NYC.
What a fabulous idea. Not only does it eliminate waste, it also is a nice way of connecting with like-minded people.
I’ve been covering this Share the Harvest phenom (we call ‘em “crop swaps” on the mainland) and they seem to be popping up all over the place where good food is grown. Enjoy.
Great time to start thinking about this. Our first seed catalog arrived last week.