By Peggy Sturdivant

Last spring a woman returned books at the Ballard Library but went home with homemade pickles and jam. By choosing the return slot in the lobby she got pulled into the Backyard Barter dance. Last year she happened upon the event, this year she’ll probably be there when the doors open at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 28, 2015.

Backyard Barter is a nonprofit group formed in Ballard in 2011 by Creagh Miller, Ericka Sisolak and a steering committee. They received start-up funds through a grant from Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, with Seattle Tilth as their fiscal agent. It’s now a city-wide movement for people wanting to exchange their grown, gleaned and/or homemade goods with one another. On any given month, in locations deliberately chosen to be north or south of downtown, the tables could have wild mushrooms from out Snohomish way or eggs laid within blocks.

Sarah Randall, Ballard resident and current co-director of Backyard Barter learned about the program by way of a friend in California reading about it in Grist.com. Randall is a food blogger who loves to can. Her friend told her, “You need to do this.” Randall’s path from barterer to member of the volunteer steering committee was short.

Backyard Barter’s tag line is, “Sharing food, growing community,” because the organization is as much about connecting people as swapping surplus. Although there is a website, backyardbarter.org, the participants mostly come together through a Facebook group.

Ballard loves local and homegrown so when the group manages to schedule the busy public meeting room of the Ballard Library it’s a particularly strong showing. Late summer and fall would seem a more natural time for bounty, but Randall promises the March Backyard Barter will include many eggs, plant starts and seeds, baked and canned goods – jams, pickles, syrups, and more. “We also have a good amount of people making kombucha, kefir and other ferments. We have regulars who bring knitted and crocheted items, jewelry, cards, soap and, rarely, pottery and wooden crafts.”

When I noticed the Ballard date for Backyard Barter on my “Buy Nothing Ballard” group (which is another column subject entirely) my antennae went up. At my house we’re out of homemade jam. I didn’t pick enough blackberries last summer to make jam to get us through the season. What do I have to barter? How can I participate between 1-3 p.m. on March 28th?

Sarah Randall walked me through it. At the monthly barters the first hour is just for set-up and checking out each other’s goods. No physical trading. But each barterer starts thinking ahead; I brought quail eggs, I wonder if they’d like to trade for that pottery? At 2 p.m. the trading can begin. Someone like me who wanders in without the goods might be able to barter a service such as tutoring or weeding. However Randall suggested I figure out ahead of time what to offer. “It doesn’t have to take a lot of planning. You can bake, make dish cloths or soap.”

Randall admitted that she was very nervous the first time she attended with a box of jam. That didn’t last long and neither did the jam. “It’s just the greatest group of people. And the more, the merrier.”

After the March event the next barter will be on April 19 at Second Use Building Materials in SODO. Throughout the year they are always at the Seattle Tilth’s annual festival, as well as at Solar Fest in Shoreline. In addition to Tilth they partner with Beacon Food Forest and have an outdoor barter at the Jefferson Park Lawn Bowling Club.

And what about the woman who thought she was just returning library books? How did she manage to go home with pickles? Turns out that someone was willing to trade to her for piano lessons. I want to be part of the barter dance. What will I offer up for the jam?

Backyard Barter. March 28, 2015, 1–3 p.m. Ballard Branch Library. www.backyardbarter.org