The last days of autumn fell quickly and just before the snow landed, ACC baking students joined our Grounds Department to assist with this year’s Grow-A-Row harvest. Led by Grounds Gardener Shivcharan Sandhu, the team broke the RRC record with 4,270lbs of carrots, beets, onions, pumpkins and potatoes.

The Grow-A-Row initiative started here at RRC in 2013 and has since helped to support the greater community by providing over 17,376lbs of RRC harvested produce to Winnipeg Harvest, which supplies over 64,000 Manitobans a month with emergency food. The hard work planting, harvesting, digging, trimming, scrubbing, and all the behind the scenes work made this year a massive success thanks to Sandhu, Brady, Charles, Ron, Alexis and Bryan.

While the majority of the produce grown on campus is donated to Winnipeg Harvest and the Students’ Association Food Bank, Food Services also uses herbs and vegetables from the garden all year round as well as the ACC baking students. You may have even had a pumpkin pie made by ACC baking students this thanksgiving from our garden.  Click on a photo below to see the full gallery of the 2019 Grow-A-Row Harvest.

Red River College’s community garden initiative has really grown, and so has the amount of produce we’ve donated to Winnipeg Harvest.

A key ingredient in the growth of our gardens on campus is nutrient-rich compost from our onsite windrows right on campus. This compost is full with fruit and veggie scraps from our cafeteria kitchens and coffee grounds from food services locations (also making a great stride in reducing our organic waste going to the landfill)!