The team convened on Aquidneck Island for a tour of Hawk & Handsaw Farm hosted by founder Horus Khuit who provided background discussion about sustainable, regenerative farming. We started at the Portsmouth AgInnovation Farm, built by volunteers in the community and partnered with Portsmouth Middle School as a center for educating youth on sustainable agriculture. Portsmouth AgInnovation is also home to a large hoophouse behind which lies a mass of pollinator gardens, and soon will feature spaces to hold both rabbits and chickens.
At neighboring Hawk and Handsaw farm, Horus and co. are growing medicinal herbs and dye crops that double as pollinators. Bee balm, lemon balm, and yarrow are a few among them. We were brought into the wood lot at the foot of the farm, featuring flax that they plan to enter into the cloth market, along with a variety of other native woody plants including elderflower and bayberry trees.
Hawk and Handsaw’s farmers are embarking on a process to condition the land with cover crops and lime for the next two years before it will host the right acidity to bare a wider variety of plants they intend to grow.
Written by Mason Billings
Photographs by Mason Billings and Jordan Miller