84-Lancaster Firming, Saturday, March 14,1998
With exceptionally warm winter temperatures, Stan Brown has
kept tabs on the orchard's fruit tree buds even more closely than
most years.
Brown’s Market Celebrates Half-Century
JOYCE BUPP
York Co. Correspondent
LOGANVILLE (York Co.) -
There was plenty to celebrate at
the party thrown recently by the
Brown's Orchard Retail Market.
A project of a committee of the
market's employees, the annual
celebration served as a salute to
the local orchard's 50th year in
business.
"We are so blessed with the
team of people we have; we
think so much of our employ
ees," says Stan Brown, who with
his son, Scott, operates the four
generation family orchard and
retail market. "Some of them
have been with us for 20 and 30
years."
Apparently the feeling is
mutual. Among other tributes
from the staff, Brown and his
wife Nona were presented a
hand-crafted commemorative
flag to display at the market.
Brown's Orchards business
has deep roots in Loganville his
tory, back even beyond the gold
en anniversary being celebrated
through 1998. After losing his
job through the closing of a York
manufacturing firm, Brown's
father, Earl, altered his career
direction to the fruit and poultry
farm operated by an aunt. Stan
Brown, then 14, quickly devel
oped an interest in the orchard
business. His father encouraged
him to get a college degree and
pursue another career.
But a love for the land had
planted itself in Stan Brown’s
heart. After initial pre-med
studies, he returned home in
1953 to work the orchards. The
following year, he and Nona,
whom he had met at York
College, were married. Though
the military summoned him in
1956 into the Army engineers,
Stan and Nona returned right
back home after his two-year
service to their beloved rolling
hills of peach and apple trees.
During the next 20 years, the
Brown's added small parcels of
land, gradually expanding the
orchard to 74 acres. A 99-acre
addition in 1972 more than dou
bled their production capability.
Meanwhile, sales continued
from the original small stand
along the Old Susquehanna
Trail, serving the burgeoning
development pouring across
rural southern York County.
One Christmas more than
two decades ago, Brown tiptoes
into the holiday fruit basket
business, working from their
home. Stand personally "built"
the fruit structure in the bas
kets in one part of the basement,
then moved them to another sec
tion where a few part-time
employees added candies, bows
and other decorative extras.
The gift basket popularity
exploded; within a few years, the
Christmas season found every
inch of the Brown's basement
crammed with baskets in prepa
ration. Some nights, Brown got
little sleep trying to keep up
with orders.
Meanwhile, their daughter
Linda had developed a side busi
ness on her own, an outgrowth
of 4-H projects. She spent her
teenage summers baking fresh
fruit breads and cherry pud
dings to sell at the market,
building a college fund. Like the
gift basket business, the fresh
baked goods quickly won a fol
lowing of customers.
With a need for a larger mar
keting area, the bakery poten
tial and growing demand for
fruit baskets, the browns knew a
major retail expansion was
needed. In May 1986, years of
planning fell into place with the
opening of a spacious new mar
ket facility, sited on a pic
turesque knoll among the apple
orchard. Even before the spring
opening, the holiday fruit bas
ket business had been relocated
to the unfinished market, finally
freeing up the Brown's base
ment for family use.
"It all flowed together," says
Brown of the wildly-successful
retail center with its bakery
located in one corner, fruit bas
ket area in another, and over
flowing with attractive displays
of fresh produce and country
gifts. Offering top quality has
always been the primary goal.
"God helped us find solutions;
He has had a hand in this,"
Nona adds, with a smile.
"We were concerned with how
people would react to a market
environ," Brown relates. "We
wanted a warm atmosphere,
with a feeling of friendliness.
We decided to use a lot of wood.
It has a sort of personality all its
own."
From the beginning, the bak
ery business has played a key
role in the market's customer
attractions. As the baking
demand outgrew Linda's sum
mer sideline, their friend Bill
Ream took over her place in the
family kitchen, creating his spe
cialty apple dumplings. Ream
While the trees sleep, the Brown family finishes pruning and makes final plans for spring
plantings. At right are Stan and Nona Brown, with son Scott, his wife Brenda and their chil
dren, Mandy and Travis. Customers often park at their market nearby just to watch the beau
tiful sunsets over these hillsides neatly planted to rows of fruit trees.
stayed on for several years after
the opening of the market,
where apple dumplings remain
a favorite of the steady stream of
customers.
Though they thought they
had heeded advice about not
building too small, in less than
two years, space was at a premi
um. The bakery staff was dedi
cated to the "made from scratch”
concept and needed more room.
An enlarged bakery crowded the
former office and warehouse
area, creating a domino-effect of
too-little working area for every
one. The solution was the first of
several steps of expansion,
adding a much larger office,
more warehouse space and cold
storage. Scott’s wife, Brenda,
joined the operation about the
same time.
"Brenda brought a lot of
knowledge of computers to our
business," Brown praises his
daughter-in-law. "And I can't
credit Scott enough for his abili
ties." The couple is a valuable
management team, with Brenda
handling the accounting respon
sibilities and Scott managing
the orchards and production
side. Their daughter, Mandy,
works in the market and son,
Travis, has a keen interest in
both the orchard and market
sides enterprises.
Tree fruits - peaches and
apples - remain the mainstays
of the Brown's orchard produc
tion. Lesser space is devoted to
sweet and sour cherries, pears,
nectarines, several varieties of
plums, even a few apricots when
the blooms are spared from
spring freezes. Strawberries,
including u-pick, are one of the
first highlight of the summer
season. Blueberries are a more
recent, and expanding, addition.
"We used to grow a whole
selection of vegetables, but got
to the point of not knowing what
to do first. So we decided to
focus on sweet corn and pump
kins. We have good local people
who grow the other things,
which helps them and helps us.
It's worked out wonderfully,"
explains Stan.
Brown's pumpkin crop has
become a special project handled
by Scott's family. They cultivate
four acres devoted to the fall
favorite, everything from the
tiny, decorative types to those
with giant jack-o-lantern poten
tial. Last summer, however,
with one of the worst droughts
in decades sizzling southern
York County, the pumpkin crop
withered away from prolonged
lack of rain.
In addition to keeping cus
tomers happy with their 15 or so
acres planted in fresh sweet
com, the com plantings are use
ful on land being renovated for
orchards. Newer varieties of
fruit trees tend to be smaller
and producing in about half-the
time it took the old standard
ones; however, they are likely to
have a shorter productive life
expectancy than older varieties.
Therefore, peaches need to be
renovated about every 15 years,
while apples are generally good
for about 20, according to
Brown.
"We like to moldboard plow
organic matter into the sod for
conditioning, before replanting
to trees," he says. "At one time,
we disked between the trees in
all the orchards to keep the
weeds down. But that caused
soil erosion. Now, we use a sod
cover so we don't have to disturb
the soil."
In addition, a tight cover of
sod, helps to prolong the life of
peach plantings. A microscopic
pest, the soil nematode called
"tomato ringspot" thrives in the
roots of broad-leafed weeds,
including dandelions. Thick sod
helps limit the growth of such
weeds, thus helping to delay
"peach tree decline."
Along with newer varieties,
When not at the Market or industry activities, Stan and Nona
Brown can often be found catching up on paperwork in their
cozy sunroom overlooking the rolling hills of fruit trees.
Scott is cultivating some types of
apple trees trained on wire.
More shallow rooted, these culti
vars are more susceptible to
wind damage, and the wire
offers added support. And, solid
"hedgerows" of trees are, in
some ways, more efficient to
care for, including the need for
lesser amounts of disease con
trol materials.
"We are now getting more
production, using less material,
than before. The use of spray on
a crop is like giving trees medi
cine when they are sick. You
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To commemorate Brown's
Orchard Market's 50-year
anniversary, their employees
presented Stan and Nona
Brown with a handcrafted flag
to fly over the entrance.