Attention urban farmers (intentional, or not)! Since yesterday’s post about how to donate the surplus fruit from your trees, I came across another option. Barter!

Crop Swap is a new website that facilitates trading between “urban farmers” and it’s not just limited to fruit. Trades can involve things such as eggs, flower bulbs, vegetables, etc.

Here is a link to a story about Crop Swap on the KPLU.org website.

41 Legs Urban Farm in Seattle’s Madison Valley neighborhood is a somewhat similar venture. I haven’t been able to locate much information about 41 Legs — including whether they strictly sell or also barter — but it is a group of at least 3 urban farmers who grow vegetables, raise chickens, ducks, rabbits and a pig! They have a page on Facebook, but not their own website (yet).

On a related note, has anyone else noticed how common it is becoming to find that your neighbors are raising chickens? Recently I have detected at least 3 new coops within a half mile radius of my house. (Roosters are not allowed, by the way, for obvious reasons, but I don’t think that message is being heeded much.)

Perhaps the increase started in August of 2010, when the Seattle Municipal Code was revised to allow city residents to raise up to 8 chickens per household. For a layman’s translation of the ordinance visit the SeattleTilth.org website. Seattle Tilth is another local organization with a mission to “inspire and educate people to grow food organically.”

Here’s a link to another story on a site called Crosscut.com, about a young woman by the name of Nina Finley, who turned her early interest in farming into a reality in her city home.

Whether it is fueled by a desire for eating healthier foods or a need to stretch the shrinking dollar, it seems there is an ever-increasing interest in urban agriculture. Or perhaps farming is just in our nature and we find ways to get back to it even when living in the city.

What about you? Any desire to grow vegetables or raise chickens?