Castlegar Community Garden (CCC) is growing more than vegetables, it's growing community.

Sandi McCreight, co-founder of the garden and its parent program, Kootenay Food Strategy Society (KFSS) said the program, which is now in its third year has blossomed wildly.

"We are more successful than ever. Every year we get more and more people involved," said McCreight.

This year, there were 36 individual gardens and a swale, an elevated gardening area in which all the volunteers helped tend to, and harvest, the plants. That swale grew radishes, tomatoes, beans, squash, zucchini, hazel nuts and more.

"In that swale were all kinds of vegetables. We had a community group from Seattle which did a summer of service and picked 600 radishes," said McCreight.

This year, the gardens were so prolific that they were able to donate a large portion to such organizations as Harvest Rescue, Kootenay Family Place, Community Services and local seniors.

The group was recognized by Communities in Bloom and took first place in Footprint Friendly and second place in Best in Grow.

This year, they worked in partnership with Castlegar Harvest Rescue Program. That program works in partnership with Castlegar Bear Aware.

Castlegar Harvest Rescue is comprised of volunteer pickers who help homeowners by picking their unwanted fruit. In turn, this helps keeps bears away, but more importantly, the harvest is donated to various community organizations such as Harvest Food Bank, the seniors centre, Community Services, Kootenay Society for Community Living and Kootenay Family Place.

Deb McIntosh, who heads up Harvest Food Bank said those donations have made a huge difference to many Castlegar residents.

"It lessons the burden on their pocketbooks. We've had a few thousand pounds of food donated," said McIntosh.

McCreight said there is huge harvest rescue potential, but that potential can only be realized with the help of volunteers and funding.

"It is a huge project and needs some funding support for next year. Imagine the potential for harvesting and feeding healthy local food to our communities in the area if we had advertising, posters, brochures, etcetra," said McCreight.

For more information, or if you would like to volunteer, call Betty Offin at 365-0374 or email bettyoffin@telus.net or visit http://www.kootenayfood.ca/.