Meet Green Acres Farm: Three Generations of Sustainable Farming

The Hendricks family has been farming the same 200 acres in Lancaster County since 1998. What started as a modest vegetable operation has grown into one of the region's most respected organic farms, supplying restaurants, farmers markets, and direct-to-consumer customers across Pennsylvania.

We sat down with third-generation farmer Ellen Hendricks to learn how the family balances tradition with innovation, and why they believe the future of food is local.

Three generations on the same ground

The farmhouse at Green Acres sits at the end of a long gravel lane, the kind of road that ends where it ends. Ellen's grandfather, Walter Hendricks, bought the original tract in 1998 after twenty years of leasing land for tobacco. He pulled the tobacco contracts the first season he owned it.

"My grandfather started with just ten acres of tomatoes," Ellen says, standing at the edge of a field of winter greens. "He didn't call it organic back then. He just called it farming the right way."

Walter's son, Ray, took over in 2009 and shifted the farm toward mixed vegetables and a small CSA. Ellen joined full-time in 2018 after a stint working for a regional seed company in Ithaca. She manages the farm today, with her father still putting in fifty-hour weeks during peak season.

What the land grows now

Green Acres grows over 40 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and heritage grains across their certified-organic operation. The current rotation moves through:

• Heirloom tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Green Zebra, Black Krim)
• A salad-greens program — arugula, mizuna, baby kale, spinach — that runs March through November under low tunnels
• Storage crops for fall CSAs: butternut, sweet potatoes, leeks, parsnips, watermelon radish
• Two acres of heritage corn, milled fresh for stone-ground polenta and grits

They supply three farmers markets weekly (Lancaster Central, West Reading, and Lititz), maintain a 200-member CSA program, and ship to a growing list of restaurants that prize their consistent quality.

Soil first, everything else second

The key to their longevity, Ellen explains, is soil health. "We rotate crops on a three-year cycle, use cover cropping extensively, and haven't used synthetic inputs in over two decades. The soil gets better every year."

Walk the fields in November and you will not see bare ground. Every block is planted with a cover-crop mix — typically winter rye and crimson clover — that gets crimped and rolled back into the soil before the spring planting. The clover fixes nitrogen the next year's crops will use; the rye builds the kind of slow-release organic matter that holds water through July.

Pest pressure without sprays

Lancaster County is a pressure-cooker for vegetable pests — cucumber beetles, squash vine borers, tomato hornworms, flea beetles. Green Acres handles them without certified-organic sprays, mostly through timing and physical barriers.

"Row covers are our biggest tool," Ellen says. "We cover the brassicas the day they go in the ground. We rotate our cucurbits to a different field every year so the beetles can't find them. And we keep enough wild edge habitat that we have actual beneficials — predatory wasps, lacewings — doing the work for us."

"If your soil is healthy and your timing is right, you don't need to spray very much. We spend our money on compost instead of inputs."

Where to actually buy from them

Ellen is direct about how they want to be supported: not on Instagram, but at the markets, the farm stand, and the CSA.

• CSA shares. Sign-up opens each January. Sixteen-week summer share, eight-week fall share. Roughly The Hendricks family has been farming the same 200 acres in Lancaster County since 1998. What started as a modest vegetable operation has grown into one of the region's most respected organic farms, supplying restaurants, farmers markets, and direct-to-consumer customers across Pennsylvania.

We sat down with third-generation farmer Ellen Hendricks to learn how the family balances tradition with innovation, and why they believe the future of food is local.

"My grandfather started with just ten acres of tomatoes," Ellen says, standing at the edge of a field of winter greens. "He didn't call it organic back then. He just called it farming the right way."

Today, Green Acres grows over 40 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and heritage grains across their certified-organic operation. They supply three farmers markets weekly, maintain a 200-member CSA program, and ship to a growing list of restaurants that prize their consistent quality.

The key to their longevity, Ellen explains, is soil health. "We rotate crops on a three-year cycle, use cover cropping extensively, and haven't used synthetic inputs in over two decades. The soil gets better every year."

For customers looking to connect with farms like Green Acres, Ellen's advice is simple: "Show up. Visit the farm. Ask questions. The best producers are the ones who want you to see how they work."2 a week — competitive with the grocery store on a per-pound basis, and the produce is harvested within 48 hours of pickup. - The on-farm stand. Open Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings May through November. Cash, check, or Venmo. They keep a board out front with what just came in. - Three weekly markets. Lancaster Central is the busiest; West Reading attracts more chefs; Lititz draws families on Saturday mornings.

If you want to learn more about how Green Acres compares to other farms in the area, [browse the producer directory](https://brothh.com/browse) or read our guide on [10 questions to ask your farmer before you buy](https://brothh.com/blog/10-questions-to-ask-your-farmer-before-you-buy).

Advice for buyers, from a third-generation farmer

For customers looking to connect with farms like Green Acres, Ellen's advice is simple: "Show up. Visit the farm. Ask questions. The best producers are the ones who want you to see how they work."

She recommends starting small. Pick one farm. Buy from them for a season. Notice what changes — in your cooking, in your shopping list, in your relationship to the food on your plate. Then add another farm. That, she says, is how a real local-food habit gets built. Not all at once.

Green Acres is one of dozens of producer-spotlight stories we are publishing this year. If you run a farm and would like to be considered, [list yourself on Brothh](https://brothh.com/become-a-producer). The directory is free, and verification is open to any working producer.