Cleveland is growing, and what it grows should gain it more attention.

The oft-maligned buckle of the rust belt is becoming a green belt, as weed-spiked wastelands are turned into verdant community gardens.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, describes the transformation as "one of Cleveland's best kept secrets."

The city ranks second in the nation, after Minneapolis, in "local food and agriculture," according to a 2008 SustainLane study.

And that was before the cataclysmic foreclosure crisis and subsequent bumper crop of vacant lots spurred Cleveland activists to create even more foodie ventures.

Local nonprofit Neighborhood Progress Inc. led the way in re-imagining Cleveland's shift from cratered, garbage-strewn lots into sustainable civic investments and from inner-city food deserts into urban oases of grapevines, bean trellises and native plantings. Their innovative blueprint just won the 2012 American Planning Association's National Planning Excellence Award for Innovation in Sustaining Places.

The city is going country -- 215 community gardens, 36 for-profit farms, and growing. The benefits are economic (job creation) and life-changing (cheap, healthy, nutritious alternatives to the frozen, processed, deep-fried, sugared staples).

And it doesn't just involve community development groups working in partnership with the city and other collaborators but also individuals with fertile imaginations -- such as the dirt-loving do-gooders known as the Rid-All Green Partnership.

Three childhood friends -- a corporate executive, a mechanical engineer and an independent businessman -- returned to their old Cleveland neighborhood and shared their success by seeding a former illegal dump at East 81st Street and Otter Avenue with a gift that keeps on giving: hope.

Also, corn, collard greens, kale, four greenhouses with nearly 7,000 square feet of space to grow fresh organic produce and -- the most amazing part -- a tilapia fish farm.

They've reached out to kids with a street-flavored comic book series that features superheroes fighting environmental evil-doers. The comics are a hit. They've become the basis for a play that premiered Saturday at Karamu House.

The trio received a $100,000 grant Wednesday from the Walmart Foundation. They'll use the money to expand their vision -- building more greenhouses and a farmer's market, while hiring three employees.

Beyond their other successes in life, Randell McShepard, Keymah Durden and Damien Forshe are now philanthropic agents of change who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.

As neighborhoods blossom, the city will bloom, and the foreclosure crisis will have served a purpose unimaginable.