Welcome to The Orchard
RiverPear Orchards sits on a 45-acre property in Walnut Grove. Our orchards grow Bartlett pears and Bosc pears — including the antique gold colored Bronze Beauty Bosc variety.
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We, the farm’s principals and owners, J. “Doug” and Jane Dickson, have kept the orchard a family business. Our family runs it with love, with the help of a close-knit team, and the friends who visit the orchard every year have become family. Visit our blog for regular updates on the orchard, harvest, and the many visitors to the orchard throughout the year!
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Becoming pear growers wasn’t always the plan for us. Our path to River-Pear Orchards began with a wild and crazy couple trying our hands at vineyards and farm land. Read the full story of how we came to settle down at River-Pear Orchards.
Our Bartletts show a reddish color at their base early in the season, which slowly goes away as they grow larger. They’re harvested first, in mid-July, and it is the Bartletts that are associated with eating out of hand, juice running down your arm as you chew away.
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Learn more about our Bronze Beauty Bosc and Bartlett varietals, and get harvest updates, by visiting our blog.
Our Bronze Beauty Bosc pears start off with a tannish-light brown color, getting bronzer by the week. At harvest, the ground is allowed to grow as we are a no-till orchard operation. This means that we do not till the soil up between rows of trees, and this allows beneficials to accumulate along with worms and other microbes which produce natural pathogens against disease.
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The bronze-rosey glow of this variety appears late in their growing and mature best in September. We call them our culinary pear, as they bake, poach, roast and barbecue best.
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Learn more about our Bronze Beauty Bosc and Bartlett varietals, and get harvest updates, by visiting our blog.
Mission Statement
River-Pear Orchards, a family-owned agricultural concern, seeks to provide to the local community, as well as to those served by our products, Bartlett and Bronze Beauty Bosc Pears, farmed under California’s Certification Standards, with food safety and market quality as important factors in our mission for our company’s future. We seek to pass on to our customers the unique qualities inherent in our Sacramento River Delta’s history: natural water source, organic, sustainable and tree-preserving methodologies, in the area’s agrarian tradition.
Our Aim
As the first generation of our family to farm these orchards, we strive to
maintain the high-value product previously established by generations of farmers before
us, and we want to continue the reputation these orchards have had of higher-than-
average yields. By combining both organic and sustainable farming practices, we farm
with today’s environmental understanding for our community, and we grow product for
our local markets, food banks, and for those companies which procure our pears for
enhancing their product line.
Management Organization
Management Commitment to Food Safety Policies
We at River-Pear Orchards recognize that food safety systems need to be codified and
documented to be rigorous and effective. We aim to contribute to the market high quality
produce and produce safe to the public.
At River-Pear Orchards, our food safety program is conducted in a formal manner on-
site. Effectively managing risk and aiming to up-grade and review our safety policies
and procedures are our goals.
We at River-Pear Orchards make available necessary resources, staff, training and
support programs to ensure successful implementation and maintenance of our food
safety program so we can continue providing a safe and high-quality product to families
everywhere.