The Western Urban Harvest Swap-Meet
Until last newsletter, I hadn’t realised there are different models for swap-meets. Thanks Abbie Lane for your article in PIE108. I’d like to share a description of the one we go to, the Western Urban Harvest Swap-Meet in Footscray. It’s the first Saturday of the month from 10am to 11:30am, on the pavement outside the organic grocery community initiative Grasslands. On arrival you place your ‘offerings’ on a communal table. You help yourself to other people’s offerings as you like until you leave.
The February swap-meet was the highlight of that weekend. We admired and then tasted exotic fruits, first Christian’s ‘horn melon’, then Wendy’s gooseberries. We saw the delight of first timers (neighbours we’d encouraged to come!) as they were made to feel welcome and half-filled their basket with zucchinis, cucumbers, peaches, jams etc to feed their large family. We chatted with friendly people we hadn’t met before and were pleased to see other regulars. Swapping tips with others, we realised we haven’t seen bees in our veggie garden in the last few months and that would probably be why the cucurbits hadn’t pollinated! And, oh yes, we swapped two pots of chives, cherry tomatoes and cut herbs for a few zucchini and cucumbers, a handful of gooseberries, a couple kaffir limes (with the advice ‘grate the zest’), a couple of green apples, a few different varieties of tomatoes and a snack of homemade bread and jam. No wonder it was our highlight!
I asked a few regulars what they got out of coming to the swap-meet. Here is the flavour of their responses:
* Tangibles: “Food!” “Getting some good seeds.” “Saves me money.”
* Community: “It’s a social catch-up.” “Its nice to talk to like-minded people.” “Its how community used to work.” “It’s more about the social aspect than what you bring home.” “Always someone interesting to talk to.”
* Cooking/gardening: “Share information about how to cook things.” “Tasting the flavour of natural produce.” “Gives you inspiration about growing things.” “Seeing and trying different things.” “Always interesting to see what fresh organic locally produced goods come.”
The sense of community and generosity is strongly felt and reflects the spirit and intention of this swap-meet’s founder, Neesh Wray. In terms of the organising effort for these meets, Neesh sends out a reminder email out one week in advance, which (with her contacts organised) is very easy. She says “being there for 1.5 hours is not a big effort to set it up and stand around eating yummy produce and chatting to lovely people.” Most people are very shy about taking and very generous in giving, so another task towards the end is encouraging all to take a bit more home. To get the first swap-meet going a little over a year ago, Neesh received assistance from the local council’s food security officer to find an appropriate venue and generate a little publicity.
So there is the Western Urban Harvest Swap-Meet! I understand the CERES model is similar and has seeded a few swap-meets in addition to ours. I’d say this model has a lot going for it. It is simple to get going and run, it builds community and the participants build gardening confidence and experience. As for any downsides, personally I’m not sure how well it could scale up much beyond the 35 or so people who attend (on a good month) now. But if it got too big, we could perhaps split-up into two or more swap-meets in different locations.
So thanks Neesh! I have a transcript of an interview with Neesh on her perspective on the swap-meet. I’m happy to email it to you if you would like to read it. Contact me on Kate_M_Leslie@yahoo.com.au
Kate Leslie
Kate is part of the Initiating Group for Transition Hobsons Bay, which is considering starting an Urban Harvest Swap-Meet in Newport. Find out more at http://transitionhb.groupsite.com