Our History
The Green family has cared for this farmland since 1945. Today, the legacy is continued by combining tried and true methods with modern day orchard technology. With sustainability as an overarching goal, Green’s Fruit Farm looks forward to many more decades of service to its customers and community.
Our Story
Green's Fruit Farm is a nearly 100 acre tree fruit farm situated in Montour, Columbia, and Northumberland counties. It can be found conveniently located adjacent to the intersection of Routes 487 and 54. The Green family has been growing fruit - including apples, peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, and pears - for nearly 80 years.
Robert Green Sr. purchased the farm in 1944 following a bank foreclosure on Tri-County Fruit Farms. For many years, he and his son - Robert Green - built up the struggling business by experimenting with many enterprises including tomatoes, chickens, turkeys, apples, corn, soybeans, and sunflowers. Robert Sr.'s son - known to many as "Bob" - saw the potential in growing apples. Beginning in the 1980s, apples grew from a side venture into the primary focus of the business.
Bob and Joan ushered in the new millennium by adopting new technologies such as foliar fertilizers and plastic storage bins, new varieties such as Gala and Honeycrisp, and high density apple trellising systems.
When Bob developed heart problems later in life, his daughter Julie dedicated countless days and hours to caring for her father as he navigated his health issues. After Bob’s passing, Julie and her husband Mike inherited the farm - determined to achieve the goal of continuing the legacy of caring for this gorgeous land.
In keeping with their desire to preserve the beauty and legacy of the farm, Mike and Julie have since passed on its management to their son Bobby and his wife, Sara who - together - are cultivating more than 40 different apple varieties along with peaches, nectarines, and some plums and cherries.
Robert Green Sr. with his wife and three children
Bob and Joan Green
Mike and Julie (Green) Hricko
“For us, building healthy, resilient agroecosystems and communities is a driving force in how we farm.”
— Bobby and Sara Hricko
Green’s Fruit Farm: The Next Generation…
Hi, we are Bobby and Sara Hricko, a husband-wife team doing our best to raise a family and fruit besides. As you can see from the history page of our website , Green’s Fruit Farm has changed and evolved many times over the years. We are proud to be the fourth generation to shepherd the farm through the challenges and opportunities of the next few decades.
While hardly ever easy, this life we’ve chosen continues to deepen our appreciation for each other and for the little miracles of everyday life. We met at Penn State while we were both working on plant science degrees. After we graduated, our education was continued by the best teacher we had yet encountered – Mother Nature. We are proud to be among the privileged 1% of Americans who call themselves farmers and choose – every day – to care for the land and feed the world.
Especially as we raise our young children, we are possessed with a drive to feed our family well and leave them with a better world than we currently enjoy. This is why we adhere to the most rigorous, low-spray, IPM driven certification program: Ecoapple.
One significant reason why we are proud to have adopted to program is because of its holistic approach. Its requirements ensure that we document input costs to track our financials, host and design research projects, build soil health, and foster a positive and safe work culture for our employees.
If you’ve heard much of anything about the culture around farming, you will know that we have to make a number of personal sacrifices in order to keep our farm going and produce the highest quality fruit. We need to work long and unpredictable hours, we must adapt to the weather and swings in market prices, and we spend more time than we would like looking at numbers on papers and screens. Yet, the profound satisfaction of watching our family and farm grow – despite and because of the challenges we face – does indeed make it worth it and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bobby and Sara along with their two daughters, Lucy and Marian