Annual Plant Swap - At a Distance!

Each year Sustainable Hayfield’s Food Group organises a ‘plant and seedling swap’ for a couple of hours at the Library garden. There, gardeners can bring their surplus seedlings and take away those they’d like that others have donated, all for free!

This year, as many of us have turned to our gardens as a means of coping during these difficult times, we wanted to try and continue to run the plant swap. So, we are proceeding with the plant (vegetables, herbs and flowers) swap in an alternative, non-contact way but which we hope maintains the mutual help ethos which has underpinned the event.

From next Monday, May 4th, there will be a plant swap station set up in the library garden, in front of the building, where you will be able to drop off and pick up spare plants. We aim to keep the plant swap station in place for about 4 weeks, as gardeners amongst us continue to plant seeds and bring their surpluses for distribution. We will try and update what is available through the Sustainable Hayfield Facebook page.

So, when you’re on your daily exercise walk, do consider going past the library and seeing what’s there and dropping off what you can spare. And don’t worry if you are new to gardening and don’t have any plants to swap, we are happy for you to just take some spare plants and have a go at gardening!

To help the plant swap run smoothly, please follow the guidelines below:

• Please label the plants that you are dropping off, as there won’t be anyone there to do it for you. A pot of spare labels will be provided;
• Please ensure your seedlings/plants are well-watered just before you bring them. We’ll be able to water them subsequently, but at intervals;
• When visiting the plant swap station, please observe social distancing rules. We’ve spread the ‘event’ over four weeks to ensure there’s plenty of time in which to visit and no need for any congregations of people. If, by chance, there are two or more people already present, you can decide to come back another time.

We hope you’ll support this activity. It’s another way of showing we do things of shared interest, and mutual support, even in these troubling times. And attached is a sample of the sort of fare you might see – or bring!

Thanks very much - and happy gardening!