Crop Swap Update

The Oak Park Crop Swap is in full swing! For the past two weeks we have met at McClatchy Park and swapped veggies. The first week of the crop swap participants brought in 72lbs of organically grown produce to swap. The second week brought 24lbs of produce. We will be keeping track of how much food is brought to the swap throughout the trading season and posting it on the blog.

The first week we had a great speaker focus on sheet mulch gardening- I picked up many tips that we'll use next year and I think other swappers feel the same. Next week we will have a speaker on how to build Cob Ovens!

For me, the Crop Swap is an eye opening experience, for what farmers must go thru all the time. Last week I was looking over our vegetable crop and deciding what was ripe and how much to bring. There were many tomatoes that were almost ripe, peppers almost ready but not quite, plums that were too ripe, not enough blueberries etc. In the end I collected 1lb of heirloom tomatoes and a big bunch of basil. I can only imagine what farmers face when their livelihood is dependent not only on a good harvest but good timing as well.