Urban Farmers Trade Goods and Stories at ‘Crop Swaps’

The Bay Area is a culinary never-never land, a place where aspiring apiarists hire beekeeping coaches, and even 7-year-olds can discuss the virtues of Himalayan salt.

That is why, on a recent Sunday, a motley group of gardeners bearing windfall harvests of habanero chiles, persimmons and prickly pear cactus fruit gathered for a “crop swap,” an urban agricultural ritual in which city farmers get together to share their surplus bounty.