Solid Ground Farm is a 17-acre homestead farm as well as a sustainable recreation and event center. They host youth outdoor adventure and education programs, sustainable living workshops, school field trips, and sustainable agriculture internship programs. The farm is run using natural farming and premaculture principals. They specialize in soil conservation and hillside agriculture practices, and are home to Southeast Ohio's largest and most diverse forest garden. Their mission statement is, "To develop, share, and celebrate sustainable solutions to home and community-scale food production, and to demonstrate that through creative natural resource management. The land, as always, is still the basis of our health and wealth".
The Farm is run and owned by Weston Lombard who lives down the street from the farm. Lombard recently started th Solid Ground School on the farm, which includes after school programs that he leads. He employs two teachers, an after school program leader and a farm manager. Classes are small in size, with a ratio of about nine students to one teacher, and accepts kids age 4-8.
Solid Ground Farm/School is a 17 acre homestead farm located in Athens, Ohio and is home to SE Ohio's largest and most diverse forest garden. Solid Ground is known for their agroforestry, but they made the addition of a school space, where kids can learn about the environment around them, this fall of 2019.
Weston Lombard balances on a tire before falling, while playing with the kids on the nature made playground outside of Solid Ground School, on Tuesday, November 17, 2019. Lombard is the Director of Operations, Nature/Entrepreneurship Teacher, and Afterschool Program Director at Solid Ground Farm/School.
Teacher Christin Butler reads "My Fathers Dragon" to the kids inside the classroom on Friday, September 27, 2019. Solid Ground School enrolls kids aged 4-8 and have a student to teacher ratio of 9:1.
Teacher Keith Barron teaches the stundents how to plant kale, and other greens in the bakyard garden on Friday, September 27, 2019. This is one of the ways in which the Solid Ground School teaches its students to connect with the earth and environment around them.
The kids gather their haul of apples and pears after picking them from one of the trees in the forst garden on Friday, September 20, 2019. This was the first step in the process of making cider, which the kids had to work for before they could enjoy it.
Remmy, 2, bites into a fresh picked peach on Tuesday, September 17, 2019. Solid Ground Farm is known for their agroforestry and are currently growing pesticide free fruits.
Weston teaches the kids to make apple cider, as they grind the apples and pears they just picked. The students also learned what it means to pasturize the liquid before they could drink it, and that their scraps are compostable and could even be fed to the chickens.
