Turning lemons into pumpkins isn’t as tricky as it sounds. There’s no divine intervention required, no incantation to recite, and absolutely no genie involved. All that’s needed is to swap your excess lemons with someone else’s excess pumpkins. Simple, really.

And like so many simple ideas, swapping food is a craze that’s catching on. In the last three years, there’s been a surge in the number of people turning up at scheduled ‘food swaps’ around the country.

A place for people to trade their home-grown surplus with other backyard growers, food swaps are a relatively straightforward affair. Each has a place to meet on a regular basis, a table for swapping and a handful of volunteers to keep it running. What you won’t find at most swaps, however, is a rule book dictating the worth of your items, guaranteed supply of a particular produce, or money changing hands.

With no set prices to refer to, it’s up to swappers to decide for themselves what constitutes a fair exchange. “One of the funny things that people find hard to get used to is that it’s not a straight swap for anything,” says Chris Ennis, the organic farm manager at CERES (Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies), home of Melbourne’s first food swap – Urban Orchard. “It’s a take what you feel, and what you feel is right situation … Often the problem is getting people to take enough.”

When it began three years ago, Urban Orchard had a core group of 35 members. Today it’s a regular hub for residents from over 200 households, who gather every Saturday to swap their excess harvest.

Locals have embraced the project; Ennis believes its simplicity is part of the reason for its success. “The idea was based on putting that basket of lemons at your front gate so that people could share it, but doing it in a way that brings people together,” he says. “It’s just one of those really, really simple ideas that can build a community around food.”

Since it began, Urban Orchard has evolved to see swappers trading more than just food. “First we imagined that it was just fruit, but people started swapping vegetables, seeds, compost, recipes and stories,” says Ennis.

The project has also inspired others to begin their own swap, a trend Ennis welcomes and refers to as the “urban swap table movement”. In Victoria there are now close to 10 regular swaps, with others also operating in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland.

Urban Orchard volunteer Johnny Apples says the surge in swaps is due to more people wanting to grow their own food, reduce their waste, eat fresher food, and connect with other like-minded people.

For inner city dwellers in particular, this is not always an easy task. “I’m sure lots of people do it over the fence between gardens, but I think sometimes, particularly in the urban context, you don’t always know all your neighbours, so it’s nice just to provide another outlet for that,” says Apples.

With a backyard that’s overflowing with fruit, Frances Newell is one swapper glad to have such an outlet. “We’ve been in our house about 13 years, but before that it was owned by a Greek family so it had two magnificent lemons, olives, grapes, a nectarine and figs,” says Newell. “All of those things are fantastic to have but there’s no way that our family can make use of them all, so any of those things we’ve got in season, we bring.”

Although glad to be reducing wastage, Newell says it’s the “big picture” issues such as ensuring all people have access to nutritious food (known as food security), and lowering the environmental impact of food transportation (known as food miles), that really drive her family’s participation in the project. “Like so many things at CERES, it’s a small idea that’s often ahead of its time. But as the years go by the implications and the significance of it become more apparent,” she says.

John Marsh, who started the Wollongong based WasteNot! Fruit & Veg Swap nine months ago, says swaps are important because they enable people to take the next step in community based food initiatives. “There seems to be a real upsurge in community gardening, school gardens and the like. But growing is only part of the equation. We also need to harvest and distribute,” he says.

From young to old, novice to expert, Marsh says there’s no one type of person who gets involved in a food swap. “Wastenot! has people who are motivated by plants or food ... others just motivated by community spirit,” he says.

“We can't all be experts at growing everything, so it's kind of a mechanism for sharing the responsibility,” says Marsh. “You do the cucumbers and lettuce, I'll do the tomatoes, somebody else will do the bread and we all get to have a big sandwich feast.”

Simple, really.

Where You Can Swap Food

VICTORIA

Urban Harvest
McCleery Reserve
Corner of Munro and Vincent Streets
Coburg
3rd Saturday of the month

Kildonan Fresh Food Swap
Kildonan Uniting Care
Corner of Bell St & Sydney Rd
Coburg
1st Saturday of the month

Urban Orchard
CERES
Corner Roberts and Stewart Streets
Brunswick East
ceres.org.au
Every Saturday

Yarra Urban Harvest
Smith’s Reserve (next to Fitzroy Pool)
Fitzroy
1st Saturday of the month

Western Urban Orchard Swap Meet
Grasslands Organic Grocery
211 Nicholson Street
Footscray
1st Saturday of the month

Bullen Art and Garden Centre Vegie Swap Meet
6 Manningham Rd
West Bulleen
baag.com.au
Check website for next swap

Neighbourhood House
19 - 21 Leslie Street
Sale

Fruit, Vegie & Seed Swap
Abbotsford Convent Farmers Market
1 St Heliers Street
Abbotsford
4th Saturday of the month

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Urban Orchard
Clarence Park Community Centre
72-74 East Avenue
Black Forest
1st Saturday of the month

Henley Fruit and Veg Swap
Henley High School, off Cluse Road
Henley
1st Saturday of the month

Gawler Urban Orchard
Gawler Community House
2 Scheibener Terrace
Gawler
1st Saturday of the month

Community Fruit & Veggie Swap
Carnarvon Reserve
West Croydon
myspace.com/vegeswap
Every Saturday

NEW SOUTH WALES

WasteNot! Fruit & Veg Swap
North Wollongong Community Garden
Ajax Avenue
Wollongong
thegardennorthgong. blogspot.com
4th Saturday of the month

QUEENSLAND

Fruitful Suburbs Fruit Swap
Apex Park
Corner of Queens Parade and Gladstone Street
Brighton
1st Saturday of the month