We really want to make it a place where the kids choose to come and not because their parents are forcing them to, which in turn makes them more passionate about the work they’re doing.”

Ryan Brancato, the farm’s full-time manager

PORTSMOUTH — If you’ve never seen pairs of underwear being harvested before, you’ve probably never visited the AgInnovation Farm at Cloverbud Ranch on Jepson Lane.

That’s right. Besides picking broccoli, Japanese eggplant, cherry tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, bell peppers, green beans and more from the student-run farm during summer camp on Tuesday, kids dug up three pairs of cotton briefs.

There was a good reason behind it all, as Kelly Hanks, an associate director of the Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District (ERICD), which helps sponsor the camp, explained.

Sixty days ago, students buried three separate brand-new pairs of cotton briefs in different soil conditions on the farm — in the pollinator path, the micro clover field, and in the seasonal high tunnel.

The program, aptly named “Soil Your Undies Challenge,” was initiated by Oregon farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service as a way of raising public interest in soil health.

“Now we’re digging them up and the idea is that the cotton, being a natural material, will have been degraded to the point of only the elastic being left if there’s high soil microbial activity,” Hanks said.

Ryan Brancato, the farm’s full-time manager, held up each pair of undies which indeed showed significant deterioration — although not as much with the pair uncovered in the high tunnel for some reason. “We’ll have to see what’s going on with the soil and why there’s not as much activity going on in the decomposing process here,” he told campers.

The AgInnovation Farm evolved from a school garden established up the road at the middle school in early 2020 by the school district’s K-8 science coach Margie Brennan and Sara Churgin, district manager of the Eastern R.I. Conservation District (ERICD). Later on, Martin Beck of New England Grass Fed, who leases the 100-plus-acre Cloverbud Ranch, gifted six acres of land near the top of the ranch for student use.

Students are growing almost everything under the sun — from apples to zucchini — and even some things you wouldn’t have guessed, such as loofa. “The all-natural ones come from a plant. They look like a big cucumber. We did it for fun last year and showed the kids the process of making this thing you use in the shower,” said Brancato.

Following the huge success of the after-school program, the summer camp was started up two years ago. Both teach students about sustainability and composting, farm techniques, where food comes, problem-solving, and more — while letting the youngsters take the lead.

“We really want to make it a place where the kids choose to come and not because their parents are forcing them to, which in turn makes them more passionate about the work they’re doing,” said Brancato. “They start thinking about what they can do that’s different or better. Everything we’re doing here is an idea from a middle school student.”

As an example, he points to two of the more active students on the farm: Olivia Fox and Charlotte Reed, both rising eighth-graders. 

“They’re working on signs for our orchard. We didn’t have anything out here and they said we want to have signs so when people come and visit, they know exactly what variety of apple or peach is in this row,” he said. Olivia and Charlotte hand-painted all the signs with detailed drawings of what each fruit looks like. 

The girls also got the idea of harvesting a bunch of milkweed seeds from a pollinator habitat to create a milkweed butterfly garden outside the classroom shed. “They dug out the land, they stored the seeds in airtight packages, and they’re going to get those seeds in the ground for the fall,” Brancato said.

Catch-and-release fishing

Olivia also showed off her fishing skills down by St. Mary’s Pond, snagging a small catfish with 30 seconds of dropping her line. 

Mike Brennan, Margie’s husband and a teacher at Thompson Middle School in Newport, volunteers his time to give fishing lessons, saying it fits in with the farm’s theme of sustainability.

He also does it because fishing seems to be an activity that has been lost on today’s youth — even though they live in the Ocean State. Out of the 50 or so students who have come down to the pond, only a couple had picked up a pole before, said Brennan, who remembers growing up with one practically attached to his arm.

Here, the kids are into it, and Brennan is eager to show off photos of some of their catches. “That’s a 7-and-a-half-pound large-mouth bass,” he said, holding up his phone. “These are big fish. Lukas is the man; he caught a couple of the big ones. We’ve been killing it.”

That would be Lukas Lacourse, who mostly worked alongside Dylan Landreville at the farm. Both are rising seventh-graders and were responsible for carefully weighing and recording Tuesday’s harvest.

Where does it all go?

Some of the farm’s produce goes to the community food bank at St. John’s Lodge on Sprague Street. Brancato said he’s also hoping to start setting fruits and vegetables aside for the Island Oasis Food Pantry at Middletown High School, which is associated with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center in Newport. Middletown students first started coming to the AgInnovation Farm last year, he pointed out.

“I want our Middletown kids to also feel a sense of community,” Brancato said.

The young farmers reach out to the community in a very direct way at the end of each morning camp session, which runs Monday to Thursday: They gather much of the harvest — along with a donation basket — and offer it to passersby on Jepson Lane. 

Lukas and Dylan were determined to get motorists to pay attention to the harvest — the product of students’ hard work and imagination. “Get our food!” they yelled to each driver who passed by.

For more about the AgInnovation Farm, visit easternriconservation.org/aginnovation-farm or facebook.com/PortsmouthAgInnovationFarm.