BRUNSWICK

A group of students busied themselves on a hill bordering Brunswick High School on Tuesday morning. Below in the parking lot, English teacher Jon Riggleman hauled gardening tools out of his sedan before climbing to the plot above where squash, beans, root vegetables and herbs were being tended.

Riggleman said there’s about 25 acres adjacent to the school where the garden, now in its second year, stands. The students also work a small plot of raised beds at Seeds of Indepen- dence at Brunswick Landing.

The nonprofit Seeds of Independence works with at risk youth and is in partnership with the garden project. Riggleman is also on the board of trustees for the organization. The garden project is also sponsored by Wild Oats, which has purchased $1,000 in produce from the gardens this year.

“We started last year, and the field was basically this … old blueberry land that has gone back to the wild. What that meant was it was such a dense web of underground roots that we couldn’t get a tractor to plow it up. So this whole field was done last year with a group of kids with a pick mattock, just working through the roots and we worked on it all summer,” Riggleman said.

Riggleman said the next step was to dig a trench out beneath the tangle of roots to bring soil up and cover up where the students had just hand-tilled. Even then, the soil was not ready to plant.

“Anywhere you see pine trees growing naturally and blueberries, you know that you’ve got very acidic soil, so we got a soil test and we put a bunch of lime on last year and it turned out to be just right,” Riggleman said.

He said this year has yielded a bumper crop with many vegetables already harvested and a second planting underway.

“It’s just great because it’s wholesome,” Riggleman said. “Kids are staying indoors more, getting out of shape, doing more of the social media and video games — this is like the antidote.”

Riggleman diverts his attention to enthusiastically greet a latecomer.

“We’re going to start even earlier next year,” said Riggleman, who hopes to create hoop greenhouses with PVC and plastic, a move he said will let them plant in late March or early April.

Riggleman said the kids work after school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and during the summer they receive “intern’s wages” of $5 an hour for committing to working three days a week from 9 a.m. to noon through the hot summer months.

Riggleman said that just the act of getting out of the building and into nature has its own benefits and rewards.

“When I come out here, I just feel good. There’s something about it and the kids seem to love it too,” he said.

“Last year was 100 percent work,” Riggleman said. “This year we said, let’s have an element that’s like camp — let’s go out and do some experiences.”

Riggleman then charged his Bowdoin College interns Emily Soldich and Penelope Lusk with coming up with activities.

“Yesterday we were actually out on a boat and went swimming. So over the course of the summer, kids that would not even know each other have bonded and it’s been a really good thing,” Riggleman said. “There’s a whole social component to it. It’s also like learning how to work a first job for some of these kids.”

Riggleman said there’s also a philanthropic element to the program for the kids. A large squash patch will soon be turned into soup at the Seeds of Peace kitchen to supply food for the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program.

“How are the yellow beans coming?” Riggleman shouts over to Lusk and Soldich who, along with Willow Wright, outreach coordinator for Seeds of Independence, have nearly filled a five-gallon bucket.

“It’s such a good collaboration,” Wright said. “We’ve got Brunswick High School, Seeds of Independence, Bowdoin College — the interns are amazing. We’re at Wild Oats bakery selling all our produce to them — it’s just amazing. The kids are such a tight unit.”

Wright said that starting next week Seeds of Independence will start an afterschool program for incoming sixth graders from Brunswick, Freeport and Topsham. The students will be at the high school five days a week and will take over the garden and begin to harvest what current students can’t get to.

“We just want this to be ongoing and get bigger and bigger and Jon Riggleman — he’s amazing, he’s totally, totally amazing. He teaches the alternative program all year long and then instead of going home for a rest, he’s here. He hasn’t missed a day — not one single solitary day,” Wright said.

“I think it would be really cool for Bowdoin and this program to become more intertwined because I think a ton of Bowdoin students would love this,” Lusk said. “All the kids who are into it are super enthusiastic and they’re here every day.”

“I think the best part has been seeing this group come alive a little bit. We started with really disparate kids kind of coming and going and we weren’t sure who was going to stick with it,” Soldich said.

“It’s such a small group and we’ve really got to know each other — that’s been a really cool part of it,” Soldich added. “This whole thing is rewarding because we planted this and now we can pick it and eat it but there’s just something really nice about seeing them be so excited. It’s so obvious — they’re growing, we’re growing, the plants are growing but it’s true. It’s worked out really well.”