Some folks in my office organized an event where we’d bring in our excess fruits and veggies and do a big exchange for some of the other things people brought to share.

My main time of having excess food in my garden is around March, when the grapefruit tree goes crazy. Now in the late throes of summer, the garden basically had herbs to share–I didn’t think the figs would make it intact in a tight backpack as I scootered to work. So here’s my little pile of offerings: rosemary, parsley, lemongrass and rose geranium. People weren’t convinced that rose geranium was edible, so I also brought a couple recipes. [ Here’s one of them. ]

I didn’t feel so bad that my figs didn’t make it in. Someone had three trees of green figs, all of them ripening at the same time.

We have another gardening artist in the building. He had some potted tomatoes and sweet peppers to share. I helped myself to one of the peppers, Doux Long d’Antibes, a long sweet pepper from up the coast from Cannes.

And here’s this glorious collection of hot peppers. I love my hot peppers, but being fairly coastal I have a hard time growing them. This gardener lives inland a few miles, so the little bit of extra warmth helped her get this great crop. So of course my haul included a few of these as well.

This was the first time that this food swap was tried at the office, and I’d definitely call it a success. You reach a point where even neighbors and family don’t want to see you headed their direction with a bag of fruit.

I’m hoping we can do this again, maybe in the late winter, when I’ll have kale and chard to spare, along with a tree full of amazing grapefruit…