How to Start a Produce Exchange with Friends

Have a garden with an overabundance of cucumbers? Or raspberry bushes with more berries than your household can eat? Are you a member of a farm co-op and can't face another bag of potatoes this week? Rather than let this wonderful and tasty bounty of fresh food go to waste, start an informal produce exchange.

Talk to anyone with a garden or co-op membership and they are likely to have a large amount of fruits or vegetables that they may not be able to eat before it goes bad or they are simply sick of it. A friend of mine has become known at her office as "The Squash Fairy" because she brings her co-workers squash every week.

Instead of just dropping food off with friends or gifting unsuspecting neighbors with bags of produce, create a produce exchange among like-minded individuals. With just a few easy steps you'll be on your way to an even wider supply of fresh produce.

Recruit: It only takes two families to have a successful produce exchange, but larger numbers make for more variety. Ask around and see if any of your friends, neighbors or co-workers have bountiful gardens and are interested in swapping food. You can always add people as you go and it is surprisingly easy to find people who like giving away their home-grown food in exchange for something new.

Guidelines: A food exchange can be as formal or informal as participants like. The basic idea is that everyone gets a greater variety of fresh produce and don't feel they have to eat the same food day in and day out. Establish parameters from the get-go, whether it's a calling tree, e-mail system, food drop off, or regularly gathering, so everyone knows when and how to exchange food. For produce like raspberries that are time and labor intensive to harvest, part of the recipient's role is to actually pick the berries.

Timing: Exchanges don't have to be every week, just whenever people feel they have too much food and their gardens or co-op bags are full. The important part is that all participants feel they are getting and giving the right amount and type of produce, and that everyone agrees to how food is exchanged.

Giving: People with bigger gardens will naturally have more to share and will likely not receive as much in return. Produce exchanges can address this in a number of ways: have that family get food from multiple households, give away an unbalanced amount of food, or have individuals with less to share contribute non-food goods like fertilizer, etc.

The beauty of produce exchanges is they can stop or start at any time, no food goes to waste, and everyone gets to enjoy the garden-fresh flavor of fresh produce.