Raglan’s crop swappers sized up their mighty squash at the annual Pumpkin Festival at the Raglan Bowling Club recently.
Vying for top honours for heaviest, smallest, best pumpkin art, weirdest and best pumpkin baking, young and old gardeners attended with pumpkins in all shapes and sizes, and baked into various tasty delights.
For the first time this year, awards for the largest feijoa and largest choko were also handed out.
The largest choko was grown by Crop Swap guardian Belinda Goodwin weighing in at 1.06kg.
Catherine Lee enjoyed top honours for her largest feijoa and largest pumpkin.
Baked by Belinda Thomas, a pumpkin spice cheesecake combining layers of sweet and sour cream and dulce de leche topped the baking section.
Bringing together backyard gardeners, home bakers and food foragers for swapping and sharing high quality local food on a regular basis, Belinda reckons Crop Swap is a great example of circular economies, building resilience and honouring the environment.
“As a crop swap guardian, I often hear, ‘I would love to come to crop swap and I haven’t much to contribute’. My response is – get creative. We have a lady who brings chopped banana palms, fantastic mulch and fertiliser, another man makes steel netting pins that double up as name tag holders and another person who brings cabbage tree leaves dried and tied up as fire starters.”
Crop Swap is designed to help local gardeners share their surplus and at the same time get to know people in their community.
“It’s not a direct swap, we just put what we bring on the tables, introduce ourselves, then the bell rings and we take what we want from the tables, and that’s it,” Belinda says.
“Everyone leaves with something, including gardening knowledge, inspiration and the happiness that’s created from socialising and sharing.”
As well as sharing the garden abundance, there is also the sharing of garden wisdom from members with many years’ experience getting the best from their patch.
“Bring along your homegrown produce, baking delights, seedlings, seeds, small fruit trees, fertiliser, gosh the list goes on. It’s amazing what we can produce with our creativity, our love of gardening and our joy of giving to community,” Belinda says.
Crop Swap is held on the first and third Sunday of the month at the Raglan Bowling Club on James Street, starting at 9.30am.
Visit Raglan Crop Swap on Facebook for more information.
By Janine Jackson
