Farmers Garden for swapping surplus home grown produce
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The farmers garden - helping to connect locavores
You might remember back in May, we talked to Sophie, who created Crop Swappers.
Her goal was to rebuild communities through sharing resources; with a focus on home grown produce, preserves and home made items.
It’s a great venture because it helps to reduce landfill waste caused by excess food and plastic packaging.
This week I was contacted by Maureen, who has set up a similar venture for our friends across the pond.
She writes:
“I am a master gardener and my profession is programmer/project manager.
This spring, I taught myself the PHP programming language to improve my professional skill set.
To practice, I created The Farmer’s Garden website. The site is a place where people can post free classifieds to sell, trade or give away their surplus backyard garden produce.
I launched my site in May 2009 and it is nationwide. I think it is a great resource for members of your community. It is very easy to grow more produce than you and your family can use. Why not share your local, fresh and delicious vegetables, fruit, berries, etc. with others?
Registration is free and required to post a classified. Registration is not required to search the classifieds.
So there you go. If you live in the US and have some surplus produce looking for a loving home, why not register with Maureen’s Farmers garden site and get swapping?
What do you do with your surplass produce?
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Tags: food waste
Hi Mrs Green,
A great idea to encourage swapping of excess produce from the garden. Locally, is probably the best place to make contacts. Sweet Basil has been my main focus and 6 pots have been passed around family and neighbours. They will all appreciate the value of fresh-cut leaves for cooking. Some have growing experience and using a seed propagator was one good tip. Bringing on seeds in days rather than weeks is particularly useful for Sweet Basil to maximise output in the shortish season here.
The latest idea for longterm use is baking the later leaves in the oven, just before browning occurs in the heat. The leaves can be crumbled into the small granules normally purchased. This appeals since the process can be done quickly with all leaves at the season end.
http://www.pickleandpreserve.co.uk/index.php/blog
I am trying all kinds of new recipes this year with surplus veg/fruit/hedgerow the site above has some nice ideas.
elderflower champagne and cordial have been good so far. The next venture is blackcurrant cordial and cassis with a friends blackcurrant excess.
@John Costigane: John, I agree swapping produce locally is best. But I guess many people no longer grow things or do not have neighbours who value home grown or home made items.
Good luck with the herbs drying process. I’ll be interested to hear how it goes as I have always favoured air drying.
@Sally: Thank you for the link Sally; that site looks wonderful. It sounds like you have been busy making the most of your harvest and have created some lovely sounding things.
keep us updated on the items that are most successful for you; it’s great to compare notes.
last year, marrow chutney and green tomato chutney were big hits. I made a beetroot relish too, but it went so thick it was impossible to use. I also did an apple chutney which was good, but the biggest hit was a freezer full of apple pies, which lasted through to April!
I play ding dong ditch with my extra produce. 🙂
I actually swap with friends. I grow extra of what I grow well, so that I can swap with friends. I swap tomatoes for eggs, strawberries for peaches, etc.
@Alea: Sounds perfect. It would be lovely if more people shared those opportunities. Growing your own isn’t necessarily the norm in some communities, so you can be left with a glut which no one wants.
it’s ok for us; we swap with neighbours too; but it’s great to find schemes such as this one to help share produce if there is not a sharing community at the moment.