Ecotrain asks us this week about having too many things. What have we had too MUCH of, and how did we deal with that? What would have been the likely outcome if I had not dealt with it both short and long term? Check out the question here - anyone is welcome to join in the fun! And make sure you check out the #ecotrain tag to see what others are doing too - lots of great reads by great Steemfolk!

This question came at a perfect time for me, just as I'm organising a local seed and plant swap in our local community Facebook group. Yeah yeah, I know Facebook is a bit of a swear word around here, but, considering most people around have it, and I can't talk ANYONE into getting on the steem blockchain, it's a nice and easy way to contact people and create community online, and I've been running our local gardening page there for so long now that everyone knows about it and benefits from it, so I'm not abandoning THAT side of Facey anytime soon.

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Being blessed with five acres, we've been growing our own fruit and vegetables for a while now. I always seem to grow far more than what I need, and love giving it away - in fact, partly the reason I grow so much IS to give it away, keeping food production local and keeping money out of big supermarkets that exploit farmers and sell food either overly packaged, overly laden with chemicals or not as fresh as they claim in their slogans. I love this 'punk' side of gardening - I love not being forced into a consumer society because I am responsible for a big amount of our food and I love how cheap and easy it is, let alone fresh and nutritious. I also adore the joy it brings people when I share it at work or give it away in our community group. I suppose it would never really go to waste in this system - the chickens eat what we can't, or it goes into the compost heap. Short term, waste gets recycled. Long term - I'm hoarding stuff to myself that could benefit wider society in many, many ways.

So, how could I do this more efficiently, and share with as many people as possible?

I wanted to create a more organised system of sharing plants and seeds that would inspire people to save and give away seeds. To do so, I've invited everyone to give their email address so that I can share an editable google document with them. This will contain information such as our name and contact, the plant we're sharing, the date harvested, and other tips. We can then scan the list and contact the person who has a seed or a plant we could use. These can just be left on someone's letterbox or front porch for ease of collection.

We don't need to be super detailed or pedantic with it - if we're not sure where it was from or if it's a heirloom, we can say so. People can share as much or as little as they like.

There's a whole heap of reasons for creating this abundance:

1. Save money.

Seed packets always have far more than we need for the given season, especially in small backyard family gardens. I always fold the packet over, put it in a box with the others, and three years later they're apparently out of date and I haven't used them all, or I've stupidly thought I didn't have any and bought 3 more packets of the same thing. What a waste!

If I could convince the community that buying a packet of seeds to share creates more abundance than they might think by giving them away, we all have an endless supply of these seeds just by promising to save the seeds and return them to the bank the following year.

Plus, these seeds become tradeable - if I have a heirloom that someone else doesn't, they might swap it for a rare vegetable seed or plant that they have in their garden too, that no-one would have known about if the project didn't exist.

I also like the idea of encouraging people to buy from ethical, sustainable seed catalogues. Often we don't order them because it's far too expensive - BUT - if I order a few, and someone else orders a few, and we share them and bank them, in the long term, it's a far cheaper investment than me, say, buying ALL the seeds from the catalogue.

2. Grow New Plants & Create Enthusiasm About Food Production

Many people are excited about this seed bank because it enables them to grow new plants and vegetables that they may otherwise not have grown. Plants and seeds at our local hardware store are fairly generic - growing heirloom varieties is far more interesting!

Alot of aware gardeners KNOW the importance of biodiversity in our vegetable gardens, and some even have seeds that are passed on from grandparents that they would love others to grow. Those already enlisted in the project are super excited about helping be a part of doing something good, and passing on what they have to others.

3. Get Tips & Wisdoms

It's not just an abundance of physical things that grows out of this group, but wisdoms from gardeners who may know stuff you don't, or you being able to help others out in their gardening ventures. And if you can do that, imagine the impact on the planet! The more people growing food out of their own garden, the better! Less fuel on transporting, less renewable resources growing and harvesting and packaging, less waste.

People are busy, and use technology - those two things are a given. It's sometimes hard to organise face to face community meet ups, but the Plant and Seed Project still connects people together to help them learn and grow, creating abundance they can pass on to others - such a healthy, connected, beautiful way of living in community! I love the reports back from the group about this group who absolutely love the idea.

Now what?

So I've created the Google document, uploaded what I have, and now I need to get the word out. I'm writing an article for the local newsletter about it, and plan to start a column there soon. I'm going to create a flyer to put up on the local noticeboard to attract people who may not use Facebook - I like the email mailing list as it's kinda old school, and everyone still understands it. There's a few other community pages online I can advertise through as well. Hopefully through figuring out what to do with MY abundance, I can assist others create abundance in their own gardens, pockets, hearts and minds!