'I don't have much,' they say, as they come in bearing small baskets of roses, geranium cuttings, broad beans, lemons, bunches of mint, native oregano, cuttings of yarrow, tomato seedlings. 'I hope this is okay,' they smile apologetically, feeling inadequate and unprepared and perhaps a little worried that they don't have enough of a contribution to make.
'Take these!' Brian-from-Norfolk says, holding up the hugest swedes I have ever seen. A woman in a blue flannel shirt with the bluest eyes I've ever seen, and a Irish accent softened from years in Australia, says the Irish call them turnips. I puzzle over this later. What the hell do they call turnips, then? Brian also brings telegraph beans, and some cuttings of a gooseberry for me. I give him a packet of blue elderberry seeds and tell him he must grow them for me, as I'll be away next year.
John and his partner, whose name I miss, grow the hugest lettuce I have ever seen. His partner is from Montreal and originally Malta. He tells me about how science knows what gardeners have known since the turn of the century but couldn't prove - hands in the soil make for better gut health. We talk about how gardening reminds us that we are part of an interconnected web, not separate 'man' and everything else. He is old and wears a hearing aid. Later, a woman who's befriended me via brief visits to pick up plants tells me she knows them, and will hook us up for scones and tea at their house, because you should see their place! she gushes. 'They've even got a distillery!'. We swoon jealously. She shows us a pig on her phone she rescued from two eagles last week. It's face is bloody and her husband rolls his eyes. 'She shoulda left the bloody thing' he growls, smiling.
Belle is Australian and her partner is from South Africa. They were ripped off in some eco-community venture in South Africa and have taken them to court. Luckily they had an investment property here that they moved into. They're trying to adjust to life in Australia again. It's hard, because she misses community. She cradles a new born in her arms. They haven't named her yet. Her partner brings lots of yarrow and enthuses about making his acreage into a woofing farm, bypassing council regulations by putting in a bus or a container as semi permanent dwellings. They're barefoot and dreadlocked and wax lyrical about personal sovereignty and barter systems. Belle and I talk about Morocco and travelling Burma and she says I look way younger than I am, so I like her. A lot.
Brooke is a chicken lover and makes preserves for the local butchers. She brings us sample pots and says next time she'll bring scones and cream. She comes around afterwards and gets 12 fertile eggs off me that I've decided not to hatch as they'll hatch around Christmas and we'll be travelling shortly after that, so I'm trying to be sensible.
I chat for ages to a woman who clearly loves her medicinal herbs, but I miss her name, because after a while I'm onto the next conversation. Fiona, with her two beautiful children, brings me a soy latte from the cafe across the road and we arrange for me to give her my chickens when we go off travelling. I meet a beautiful young girl, Issy, who gushes about how wonderful the swap meet is, and who may house-sit for us, or at least ask around her friends.
Jo gives me a huge bag of dried rose petals that she picked for me when I said I was after them last time. I'll take them home and put them straight into a double boiler with jojoba for a rose cream. She promises to bring me more.
Everyone is smiling. We have many conversations that lead us to the same point - that on our own, we might not have much, but together, we have an abundance.
The names in this piece are made up, but the stories aren't.
Each month, we have a local community swap meet with garden produce, and the community absolutely loves it. There's a real demand for this kind of thing, and if you're being shy about starting one, don't. People will be grateful, and you'll love it. We are all so isolated in our ticky tacky houses. We have to make ways to be together. Tribes are where it's at, even if it's a temporary tribe once a month, full of garden geeks.
