BY JILL WENDHOLT SILVA | THE KANSAS CITY STAR | 11/15/2014 6:00 AM
Bob Brassard squats in front of a raised mound and uses his thick, knife-scarred and oven-singed hands to swipe away a thicket of creeping green sweet potato vines. He points to blobs of white and orange threatening to poke above the surface.
“We’re in beet territory,” he proudly proclaims. “What you want to do is pull it straight up by the stem.”
It’s the first week back at school, and Brassard wears his chef’s coat over cargo shorts as he merrily tromps in a pair of kitchen clogs through the neat rows of rich brown Missouri Organic dirt, considered the gold standard by local urban farmers. He’s leading a group of his students through the new Broadmoor Urban Farm, a quarter-acre plot of land behind the Shawnee Mission School District’s Broadmoor Technical Center at 6701 W. 83rd St. in Overland Park.