If you’re a prolific gardener, you’ll know the problem. You wait, you nurture, you weed, you water, you stare lovingly at tiny green things and encourage them to GROW. And then they do… all at once.
Suddenly there are zucchini everywhere, tomatoes ripening faster than you can eat them, beans coming out your ears and a citrus tree seemingly determined to produce enough fruit for the entire neighbourhood.
Welcome to the garden glut.
I’m pretty good at making the most of what we grow. I preserve, dehydrate, freeze, cook, eat, swap and I give excess produce away. I turn perfectly innocent fruit and vegetables into powders, sauces, relishes, jams and all sorts of other experiments. Sometimes there is simply too much which is why a new New Zealand initiative called GateShare caught my attention.
So, what is GateShare?
GateShare.co.nz is essentially a way for home growers and makers to connect with people locally who would like to buy what they have available. You might have surplus fruit or vegetables. Perhaps you have eggs, seeds, seedlings, cut flowers, or other things you’ve grown or made yourself.
Instead of needing to set yourself up as a traditional farm shop, or to take your chances on an honesty box, you can list what you have available and let local buyers find you.
For me, that could be particularly handy with citrus. I grow plenty of it and, at certain times of the year, I can have a LOT. I also grow varieties that aren’t always easy to find in a supermarket. Take Seville oranges. If I have bags of Seville oranges available and someone nearby has been hunting for them to make marmalade, why shouldn’t we find each other? They get their oranges. I get a little return from something I’ve grown. Best of all, the fruit gets used. Win. Win. Win.
I don’t want to run a farm shop (well I do, I would LOVE a little farm shop… in theory). In reality, I don’t particularly want to sit around manning one. I’ve got things to do. I’m busy gardening!
An honesty box is another option, of course, and they work wonderfully for plenty of people. But we’ve also all heard those rotten stories about growers putting beautiful produce out for sale only to discover someone has taken the produce AND the money. Sadly, not everybody is quite as honest as the honesty box would like them to be.
GateShare offers another option. Your property doesn’t necessarily have to become a public roadside stall with your address displayed for everyone to see. Buyers can purchase through the platform and then receive the information they need to arrange collection.
Buyers & Sellers
I may grow a lot of food, but I certainly don’t grow all the food my household is likely to consume. It’s around a 20 km round trip for me to visit my nearest supermarket. If I can buy something from another local grower instead, I’m absolutely interested.
That’s where I think this becomes more interesting than simply finding somewhere to offload a few spare lemons. It’s about discovering what people are growing around us. Perhaps my citrus glut overlaps with your apple glut. Perhaps you’ve grown 400 tomato seedlings because you got slightly carried away in spring. I understand. No judgement here!
Perhaps your hens are laying faster than your household can eat eggs, while mine are off the lay. Maybe you’ve saved far more seeds than you’ll ever plant, or have a varietal that I’d never be able to find in garden centres. If it isn’t me then there may be somebody just down the road who would be delighted to have them.
Sell it, give it away or swap it
Not everything needs to be about making money, either. GateShare allows people to list things for sale, but there are also opportunities to give things away or indicate an interest in swapping or co-op arrangements.
And THAT feels very homesteady to me. It’s taking something humans have done forever (sharing, swapping and trading what we have) and giving it a modern little technological nudge. Instead of wondering who on earth might want your surplus, you can potentially find the person who is actively looking for it.
There are rules — as there should be
Naturally, selling food isn’t a complete free-for-all. New Zealand has food safety rules around what can and cannot be sold, particularly when we move from fresh produce into processed food. GateShare provides information around MPI requirements, so if you’re thinking about listing something you’ve made rather than simply something you’ve grown, make sure you check what applies to you.
Fresh lemons from your tree and a jar of homemade lemon curd, for example, are two very different things from a food-regulation point of view so do your homework before listing.
A very new Kiwi idea
What makes this particularly fun is that GateShare is brand spanking new, having launched at the beginning of September 2026. That means we’re watching the map populate as more little GateShare sellers appear around New Zealand. I rather like the idea of getting in at the beginning and seeing what it becomes.
You can use GateShare through its website at gateshare.co.nz, and it’s also available for Android and Apple devices. It’s free to sign up as a buyer or seller with one listing, with other options available if you want to list more. And a big tip of the gardening hat to Em Nesbit for getting the whole thing underway.
As for me…
I have citrus, lots of citrus. Citrus that is currently hanging quite happily on the trees but will shortly need picking so I’m going to give GateShare a whirl.
See you at the gate!
