The sun was not yet high in the sky but cicadas buzzing across the fields hinted at the promise of heat to come. Before the thermometer would climb with the sun on this recent summer morning, a few children spread out among rows of blackberry bushes at Sassafras Hill Farm in Barnegat.

Minutes earlier, Jeanine Cava of Tuckerton had welcomed them to the farm for the Blackberry Bash. Cava, who runs Soil to Soul, a garden-based education and mentoring organization for youth and community groups, had…