watching things grow

watching things grow / words and pictures #8
  
Watching things grow is a complete privilege. That little roquette seedling in the picture is, as the scribble says, growing on my back veranda with a congregation of other pots growing other things.
 
Notice the date? It's something I drew at the very beginning of this writing series.
 
But I blew it off as just a trivial little thing that didn’t have much of a story to tell. Instead I started with some heavy stuff… life, death, beauty, ugliness, the whole sublime catastrophe.
 
But it sure as hell isn’t only the big and extreme things that are worth thinking about, writing about, noticing, appreciating. In this very moment there are trillions of quiet little things happening, that don't need to make a big fuss about how incredible they are.
  
A seed can sit doing nothing for a very long time. Then, when conditions are right, magic happens... life happens. First one tentative green finger emerges to test the world, then another and another. Before long there is a seedling reaching up to the sun, stretching after a long sleep, becoming what it is destined to be. 
 
Maybe a roquette plant which will surrender some leaves to my kitchen in return for love and care. Or maybe it will grow into a big tree. And outlive all of us alive right now, and our children and their children. 
 
At this point in this lovely little story that has no plot and is going nowhere, I’ve remembered a story I wrote in high school which described in minute detail, the bushland that surrounded the farm where I grew up. A place my sisters and I spent a lot of time.
 
My English teacher said, “Leonie this is a beautiful description, but nothing is happening.” 
 
Does something always have to happen in a story? 
 
Probably. 
 
So, let’s get some forward movement happening here.
 
First I have to come clean. I did not grow that seedling in the picture from seed. It was given to me by someone else who grew it. Or more accurately, I exchanged it. Probably for lemons or bok choi – because that’s what I’ve got coming up in my garden right now.
 
And that exchange came from a gathering I started seven years ago called Harvest Swap. 
 
When I lived in Melbourne I used to gather in a park with a few other people to swap our small backyard bounties of homegrown things with each other. Someone would bring a thermos of coffee, someone else would bring home baked treats. We’d sit on picnic rugs, let the kids play, let the dogs run, chat, swap recipes, cabbages, lemons, quinces, herbs, whatever we had growing under the moody Melbourne sky.
 
It was such a heart-warming burst of community within the houses, streets, trams, trains and industry of the northern suburbs. 
 
When we moved to the easy-breezy, subtropical Sunshine Coast, I imagined there would for sure be a similar thing happening.
 
I asked around, but apparently no such gathering existed.
 
So I started one. 
 
Often it would be just me sitting at a table in the sun with the small amount of stuff I had growing. 
 
Sometimes an odd person or two would show up.
 
Then it was a core group of loyal friends who would come every month to support my idea, and to chat over coffee and cake. 
 
Slowly more people heard about it. I did a couple of radio interviews, made the local paper once or twice, started a Facebook page, and then an online group, and then a mailing list.
 
Over the months and years people would come once and then not come back.
 
This was a bit frustrating. 
 
I thought, if everyone who ever came would keep coming this thing would really grow.
 
I had times of wondering why I was spending time doing it.
 
I came very close to handing the idea over to a local community garden to continue, but there was way too much bureaucracy for me so that was an instant no go.
 
I had times of considering canning the whole thing.
 
I remember one point a few years back, putting a message out asking people if they cared if it continued or not.
 
The answer was a very loud YES. So I kept going.
 
Eventually the rolling stone picked up speed, and I found that it wasn’t just me rolling it anymore. It was a whole bunch of people. 
 
And then I found that I didn’t have to push at all. It kept rolling all by itself. 
 
These days (pre-antisocial distancing at least) there are often 50 or more people who attend.
 
People have come and been inspired to create their own swaps in their local areas.
 
At every swap we have a featured guest speaker / presenter on anything from sourdough bread making to growing a food forest. These talented people give their time and knowledge for free. Other people offer up their gardens and homes to host.  
 
It’s all free, there are no rules and no medium of exchange, beyond honesty. 
 
We share morning tea, learn something, and walk away with something we didn’t have in exchange for something we had too much of. 

It’s grown organically into a multi-generational, multicultural family of people united by a wish to live in harmony with planet earth.

I love this reflection by Nikita, a long time Harvest Swap regular…

"I love the connection and community that Harvest Swap provides. I especially value the inter-generational interactions. As someone who has lost the majority of the older generation (and some of the younger) in my family I truly value and respect the world view and knowledge shared by the variety of ages. I love that my sons are able to share and interact with a wide range of people. 

Economically Harvest Swap provides my family with nourishing foods and the means and knowledge to grow more, that otherwise we would not have. 

I'm so grateful to this group for the food, plants and friendships. They all help to grow my family."

This weekend (as I write this) will be the first Harvest Swap gathering since before the world turned on its head and people were told to stay away from each other. 
 
We will drink tea, eat cake, swap stories and smiles, share recipes. A cornucopia of beautiful homegrown produce will appear on communal tables, and wise Harry (another Harvest Swap regular) will impart some of his vast wisdom on native bush foods and medicines. 
 
A little seed, full of potential, watered with love and persistence, has grown into a tree with deep roots and many branches.

That roquette seedling had a big story to tell after all. 
 
Leonie x