The Oak Park crop swap is a gathering of Oak Park neighbors who trade fresh produce that they’ve grown in their gardens or foraged. It’s a great way to turn your glut of tomatoes/squash/artichokes/etc. into a much more manageable variety of food – and it’s very affordable.

When the Oak Park crop swap began, anyone who brought food would get tokens equivalent to the number of pounds of produce they brought. He or she could only take away as many pounds of produce as he or she had brought. The idea was to prevent people from only bringing a little produce, and taking a lot of produce. But before long the swappers realized that there was always plenty of produce left over – someone would bring a box of tomatoes, for example, and wouldn’t take a whole box-worth of produce. So they abolished the whole token system and just let people bring whatever they wanted to bring, and take whatever they wanted to take. (There’s still an expectation that you bring something.)