KINGSTON — In the three years since the founding of the Kingston Giving Garden, its harvest and volunteer effort have doubled.

Aline Bradley, volunteer with the Kingston Farm and Garden co-op which runs the giving garden, said their January harvest gathered 1,400 pounds of vegetables, all of which went back into the community. The Giving Garden donates its produce to ShareNet, but Bradley said they can donate some produce to other food banks if needed.

Bradley said they planted more vegetables — beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, chard, cucumbers, kale, lettuce, onions, snap peas, peppers, potatoes, radishes, spinach, squash and tomatoes — but the volunteer effort helped make the large harvest possible. Bradley said she was able to encourage more Kingston High School students, who have a community service requirement, to come on Saturdays for planting and harvesting. Her daughter, Lajoie, first brought it to the Kingston Honor Society last year.

Bradley also connected with a leader from the Washington Youth Academy at an agricultural seminar last year. The quasi-military academy in Bremerton offers education and life and job skills training for at-risk youth.

The students, called cadets, must do a minimum 40 hours community or conservation service. Bradley said about 50 cadets came out on a Saturday in March.

“They were wonderful, very disciplined, very polite,” she said.

The cadets helped prepare the ground for fencing around the garden, chopping down weeds and help move compost.

The garden volunteers are continuing to work on a Farm-to-School program. Bradley became involved with the co-op because she wanted to invove the local schools more. Bradley hoped the Farm-to-School project would donate fresh produce to Kington schools by the 2013-14 school year. She said the North Kitsap School Board liked the idea of the program in 2012, but the garden must first obtain insurance and comply with certain food safety practices.

The state Department of Agriculture funded a Farm-to-School Program until 2011 when funding was cut. Tricia Sexton Kovacs, the program’s former director, said schools are allowed to implement their own programs, following National School Lunch Program guidelines.

The garden is also “organically and sustainably managed,” according to Cathy Curry, who donated a plot of her land at Farrago Farms and Vineyard for the garden. The garden is not yet USDA-certified organic, but uses no chemical pesticides or herbicides, just fresh compost.

The co-op was founded to save the Sacks Feed building, known as the “Ag hub of the North Kitsap area,” said Kinley Deller, president of the co-op and one of the founders. While the co-op did not collect enough funding to buy the building, its members found a community for farming and gardening supplies and projects, such as the Kingston Garden.

“We have enough resources to concentrate on the garden before we expand,” Bradley said. “Ultimately, we need more volunteers. We want to give an opportunity for anyone who wants to practice gardens … and help the community.”

Bradley said the garden’s volunteers have some big plans for the garden, but for now are working to “mature” the garden.

“We’ll continue to anchor the community and [get involvement] from the local schools,” she said.