A local farm shop has launched a ‘swap-shop’ for green-fingered customers to cash in on their surplus home-grown crops.

Keelham Hall Farm Shop in Thornton, Bradford, is inviting local growers to exchange spare fruit and vegetables for vouchers to be spent in the shop.

First to take advantage of the scheme were Roger and Sonia Baert, of Hipperholme, who delivered a large batch of redcurrants that sold out within hours.

Mr Baert, 78, a retired mechanical engineer, has since been busy picking and delivering further supplies of redcurrants, along with home-grown red gooseberries, which have also gone on sale at the shop.

He said. “I was eight or nine when the war started and began growing vegetables because you could not get a lot a food. You had no option but to produce your own.”

Mr Baert now grows apples, pears, cherries, plums, raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries, blackcurrants, red and green gooseberries, runner beans, salad leaves, peas, mange tout and leeks. He also makes home-made wines from his fruit.

Mr Baert said: “It’s a really pleasant surprise to learn that my produce is selling so well. I like the scheme, because I am not committed to making a delivery on a certain date, or to an agreed schedule.”

Keelham Hall director Victoria Robertshaw said: “The scheme joins together non-commercial gardeners who may find themselves with a surfeit of home-grown crops and customers who appreciate fantastic fresh and healthy local produce.

“All the produce we receive goes on sale to other customers in a special area of the shop and while no money actually changes hands as far as the vendors are concerned, we are offering them a ready outlet for their excess crops, in some cases from the fruit trees and vegetable plants they bought from us in the first place.”