welcome to our inaugural local food swap

Our contribution

Last Sunday we had the pleasure of participating in the inaugural Springvale food swap. It was a blast. The lovely Kim has also posted about it over here. 

Our wonderful neighbours Paul and Linda, after frequenting food swaps in another locality of the valley, decided that our locality needed one of its very own. So they offered up their (gorgeous) house and garden for the morning and together we all came, baskets of produce in hand.  I spent a very lovely fifteen minutes alone in our garden snipping and picking and plucking the kale, chard, silverbeet, tomatoes and basil that we would contribute to the share table. It was a joyous start to a very humid early Autumn morning. So many different people, so much late Summer bounty to share.

Table laden with more to come

fruits of the season

oh how much I love a quince

Local as...pasture raised, handmade bacon

Of course, the produce sharing is central to the event. However there's so much more going on. There's the opportunity to meet and connect to people who live near, to forge a real connection around the thing that sustains us all. I feel like so much was shared and gained in those few short hours last Sunday morning. There was the sharing of gardening tips and experiences, the gossip, the sharing of owner building stories, the chat about poultry, pigs, lambs and cows, the conversations about Landcare grants, Diggers Club, Seedsavers, what to plant in your wildlife corridor/windbreak, the opportunity to congratulate the recently crowned champion jam maker of the Bega show and the opportunity to discuss worm farms, composting, water harvesting, irrigation, solar panels, passata making and on and on it went. All of it existing outside of any kind of money-based economy. Hurrah. And all the while, the kids gorged themselves on homemade cakes and cups of tea and ran and hid and explored and climbed... I filled our basket with other people's produce and I felt glad and lucky and eager for more of this sharing kind of life. Thanks friends and neighbours!

Our loot