EVENDALE, Ohio – Gorman Heritage Farm in Evendale is a 122-acre nonprofit working farm and outdoor education center. It is operated by the Gorman Heritage Farm Foundation and is recognized on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The farm’s mission is to educate the public about nutrition, sustainability, the environment, and more importantly, about agriculture.

To educate a much younger audience, farm staff and volunteers of Gorman Heritage Farm conduct Farm Summer Day Camps for young children in Hamilton County. This summer Gorman Heritage Farm held its Farm Apprentice camps for ages 10-12.

“We host a variety of educational programs for youth, and each summer we now hold a Farm Summer Day Camp that lasts 10 weeks,” said Gorman Heritage Farm Executive Director Ryan Mooney-Bullock. “Children can opt to attend a week at a time. Some attend three or four of the camps.”

In years past, farm camp topics have included Chicken Camp (ages 5-7), Farm Adventures (ages 9-12), Farm Apprentice (ages 10-12), Farm Chef (ages 9-12), Little Homesteaders (ages 7-9), Seedlings (ages 5-7), Vet Science (ages 10-12), Young Farm Chef (ages 6-8) and Mini-Horse Camp (ages 6-8).

Each farm camp combines farm life, nature, art, cooking and science.

“During these camps the children take over our animal chores for the summer,” Bullock said. “Here we have educational animals and production animals. They feed them, water them, cleanout their enclosures, collect eggs from the chicken coops and other chores related to these animals.”

This farm rests roughly 13 miles north of downtown Cincinnati. The farm has neighbors, but not the rural kind. Close by is GE Aviation, the largest manufacturer in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Also nearby are Formica Corporation, Gold Medal Products and 20 other large-scale businesses.

In a county with the fewest farms in the state, Gorman Heritage Farm has 30 tillable acres. Here you will find a farmyard, gardens, five miles of hiking trails, a wildflower preserve, an abundance of livestock and a wide array of produce. The farm offers many educational programs, such as school field trips, summer day camps, summer farm tours, farm-to-school programs, scout programs, preschool story hour and family programs.

Through the year the farm conducts adult and family programs, such as Wildlife Conservation, Pollinators, Gardening, Chickens and Composting.

“One thing we hold each year is the Agriculture Education Day,” Bullock said. “We hold this in conjunction with the Hamilton County Farm Bureau and other organizations. We’ll have hundreds of kids on the farm from a large number of schools. It’s designed to introduce to them what agriculture is, tell them about farm life, where their food comes from and hopefully get them interested in exploring agriculture and just maybe it’s something they’d like to get into.”

According to Bullock, Agriculture Education Day (Sept. 16) is a free educational field trip designed for 3rd and 4th grade students in Hamilton County. Students will be taught about food production, farm animals, water quality, soil science, composting and more. Stations will be in place which will have interactive exhibits with expert instructors.

Gorman Heritage Farm has many additional activities, including with the May Farm Fest; Row By Row (Sept. 12), an annual farm-to-table fundraiser with a focus on farm fresh food; and Sunflower Festival (Oct. 3-4), where visitors can roam among the sunflowers and cut-your-own for just $1 per stem. Visitors can explore education stations, listen to live music or take a hayride. Finally, there are Fall Farm Fun Days (Oct. 10, 17 and 24), where visitors pick pumpkins, hike, pick sunflowers, take hayrides, tackle a crop maze or simply pet the animals.

Gorman Heritage Farm is a significant example of historic agricultural production and farming practices that spanned 160 years in Hamilton County and embodies the era of diversified family farms.

From a peak in 1880, when there were 4,064 farms in Hamilton County, there has been a steep attrition of the county’s agricultural land, such that by the turn of the 21st century there were a scant number of remaining farms in the county.

Visitors to Gorman farm are treated to the landscape at it was nearly 170 years ago. The original farm dwelling is an early version of a “pre-classic I house” type. The four-bay, two-story, stone house was constructed in 1835 and banked into a slope at the rear. Around 1858, a stone kitchen ell was added to one corner of the house and by the early 1900s, the limestone bearing exterior walls and walnut lintels that were stuccoed were in place.

The large Pennsylvania-type barn was built concurrently with the stone house and was constructed on a rubble limestone foundation. The heavy timber oak framing of the barn is the original. Barn scholars have traced this building tradition to central Europe, knowing that German and Swiss immigrants were the influence of bi-level barns of that time.

In addition to the barn, the farmstead retains two 19th-century stone springhouses, one built in 1835, the second one in 1890. Also remaining is an early-20th century alfalfa barn, a 1920 limestone smokehouse and a 1930s rabbit house.

The farm has been owned and managed by five generations of the Brown and Gorman families from 1835 until 1996, when it was deeded to the Cincinnati Nature Center to preserve it from encroaching residential, commercial and industrial development.

The farm is open to the public Monday through Saturday. It is at 10052 Reading Road in Evendale.