Boyer Nurseries & Orchards, Inc. has been a family owned and operated business since 1900, when W.W. Boyer recognized the need for a local distributor for quality fruit trees for area growers.
Since those early days, the nursery has grown to provide the homeowner with a wide selection of quality shrubs, evergreens, flowering plants, trees, and small fruits. Our Garden Center houses a complete line of chemicals, reference books, statuary, orchard supplies, and unusual quality gardening implements thus enabling the customer to purchase everything they need in one visit! Boyer Nurseries & Orchards, Inc. is unique in this area in that the customer has the option of purchasing nursery stock either balled and burlapped, in containers or bareroot at a substantial savings.
The sales staff is knowledgeable and happy to assist you whether you want to plant a backyard orchard or landscape your home. To ensure satisfaction, Boyers suggests that you measure your designated planting areas, determine exposures, and if your soil is clay, shale, etc. It is helpful to know if the desired area is in a low lying, or wet spot. Also available are mulch, peat, and potting soil. Nestled next to scenic South Mountain and surrounded by acres of fruit trees, Boyer Nurseries & Orchards, Inc. would like to invite you to spend an enjoyable day with them exploring the nursery with its hundreds of varieties of flowering shrubs, evergreens, trees, and perennials.
Fruit season begins mid-to-end of June with pick-your-own sweet cherries and blueberries and in the fall pick-your-own apples. Apricots, plums, peaches, pears and over 20 varieties of apples follow suit. The Boyers Fruit Market also offers fresh vegetables, melons, jams, jellies, honey, and local pottery. Can’t come to us? We attend an off-site farmer’s market in Gettysburg. Find us behind the Gettysburg Transit Station (108 N Stratton Street) on Saturdays 8:00 a.m. – 1 p.m. June through October. Please call us for details. What to do with all that great fruit? Boyers has a cookbook “From Tree to Table” featuring a century’s worth of tempting recipes to enjoy with your fruit purchases.
The family farm is located high in the hills of western Adams County, where rainfall and spring water drain into rivulets and streams that eventually help form Marsh Creek, which provides drinking water to those living in the Gettysburg area. Waters from the farm ultimately drain downstream into both the Potomac River and the Susquehanna River on their way to the Chesapeake Bay. “We know there are a lot of natural springs and vernal pools in the woodland behind the farm and it’s an important water resource, so limiting development in this area was really important to us,“ replied Emma.
The Lower family worked with the Land Conservancy of Adams County to craft four separate conservation easements, which are voluntary legal agreements tailored to the landowner’s wishes and attached to the property title that specify the kind and amount of development the landowner wants to allow on the property, now and in perpetuity. All together, the Lower family has preserved more than 900 acres of the Home Farm.
Once the Lower family contacted the Land Conservancy of Adams County, Conservation Coordinator, Sarah Kipp went to work researching grants to reimburse the family for the value of their easement contracts. The two most recent easement settlements were funded in part by the federal Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which is overseen by the Department of Agriculture’s Resources Conservation Service. Matching funds were provided by Adams County’s Green Space Program. Other easement costs were underwritten by the Potomac Highlands Implementation Grant, which is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and administered by the nonprofit American Rivers, which works to protect and restore the nation’s rivers and streams.
The Land Conservancy of Adams County is an accredited nonprofit land trust whose mission is to preserve the rural lands and character of Adams County. It works with interested landowners to develop conservation easements that protect the county’s open spaces, farmlands, forests, and water resources. For more information about the Land Conservancy, call 717-334-2828, email lcac@adamscounty.us or visit www.preserveadams.org.