The back garden may turn out to be an unexplored resource yielding hidden treasures for those confined to barracks in coming weeks and months.

Many people have already looked into growing their own food, with reports of garden centres selling out of vegetable seeds and seedlings.

Grow Free is a community movement dedicated to making food locally grown, organic and free.

It started on the south coast several years ago, when Andrew Barker began giving away seedlings to encourage people to grow their own food.

Next came sharing carts, where people could drop off their excess garden produce and seedlings or pick some up.

The movement spread across South Australia and has since gone national and international, with hundreds of sharing carts established to ‘give what you can and take what you need’.

Now based in Strathalbyn, Andrew has enlisted many enthusiastic home gardeners and cooks to get involved in communal cook-ups, workshops and working bees, all in the name of growing community.

His latest Grow Free venture is a kids program to help out families living in isolation during the Covid-19 crisis. It aims to get kids outside in the garden, keeping busy with some creative projects.

There will be an online workshop or activity every few days, put together by Grow Free members. The first activity went live on Monday 30 March – a question sheet about a favourite tree or plant.

Find out about the Grow Free movement, where the sharing carts are located and how to get involved with a local Grow Free Facebook group, on the website.