Our new undertaking.... year in review

[Tree Spud]

Oh we definitely understand! I think Tami thought Christmas trees would be more like a month of work, not 10 months of work! Just mowing alone took us a full day this year.

TC congrats on the new venture ... wait till you get to the tree shearing stage ...

 

[Turkey Creek]

Funny, the wife and I were just talking about doing something like this this morning.
TC, where did you get your seedlings from? I looked a little bit this morning and it seems like prices are all over the board on most of the popular trees. We would probably look at Fraziers and the like. From what im seeing balsams dont grow well in my zone (5a).
How much land did you use to plant your 1100? I have probably 7 to 8 acres i would start with.
We were also thinking about planting some older stock for a faster turn around, but I'm not sold on that being economical.
My plan would be the xmas trees and then a couple acres of pumpkin and gourds, figure why not make a whole season of it.

Great looking place by the way TC!! Hope mine (if it happens) measures up to yours.

We are getting most of our seedlings from Petersons River View Nursery, I think they are out of Wisconsin. We had to take a round about way to get our Southwestern White Pine Seedlings this year, we will see if it pans out. We are planting 6-7' spacing in row and about 8' between rows "1 and 2" then 10' then "rows 3 and 4" trying to leave enough room for the tractor for spraying and a hay rack ride as was previously mentioned. Our row spacing was a little off this year and the zero turn mower wouldnt fit on some and required 2 passes on others. We spent a lot of time mowing and thats only going to increase substantially with future years of planting. Need to be more efficient on the mowing. We have probably between 30-40 acres suitable for the Christmas trees, rest is creek bottom, buildings or fruit tree nursery space out of a total of 60 acres. I cant speak to the older stock, it becomes financially a lot less feasible if you have to have it shipped to you. Those of you located close enough to a nursery to pick them up might be alright. Just make sure you can get a 8 year rotation of trees planted on whatever ground you have available.

 

[Turkey Creek]

TC congrats on the new venture ... wait till you get to the tree shearing stage ...

Yea I am sure we will do some ourselves (because thats just who I am), but we will likely have a crew come in that travels the country shearing trees for lots of growers. They are very economical considering the amount of time it would take us to shear several thousand trees in the future, pretty sure SHE would tell me that she is out on the shearing bit!

 

[Bill Loser]

Thanks for the info TC.
Do you lose alot to deer? I remember when i planted whte pines here 3 or 4 years ago the deer nipped off 75% the first winter.

 

[Troubles Trees]

That is really awesome TC! Nothing I love to see more than a joint family venture and the smiles that go with it I truly hope this works out for you bud, what a great family experience.

I have always gone to various local places selling U-cut trees and had some good and bad experiences. The one I have used the last 10 or so years is owned by a guy that does contracting work from time to time on the campus I work at.
Good features worth mentioning are: Everything is about the kids there. The trees are uphill from the barn so you grab a sled and bow saw (provided) and the first turn in the roadway up to the trees is a row of tall pines with a hidden elf hunt with candy rewards, basically elf or santa looking orniments hidden in branches with clues to reveal the location of the elf. Then you go on the hill and cut down a tree and the kids sled down (the sled is for the tree lol). When you get to the barn they run the tree through a large funnel (to minimize the size) and netting on the exit. Then they have volunteers help parents tie the tree to their vehicle while the kids go inside and drink (free) hot cocoa and eat donuts next to the always loaded fireplace to warm up. They also have a book for customers to sign but I think that is for their memories, but my grandfather passed a few years ago and to look back in the book and see his signature in the book still stirs some emotions and memories of that day, so it does benefit the customers too I suppose.
Just figured I would mention that as a consumer so you know what a customer sees as a good place to go my friend.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Thanks for the info TC.
Do you lose alot to deer? I remember when i planted whte pines here 3 or 4 years ago the deer nipped off 75% the first winter.

Not yet. Our deer population on that property is pretty sparse. Probably will become an issue we will have to deal with in the future as the trees get big enough to provide more deer habitat. Our local forester warned us that deer do tend to favor the White Pines.

 

[Bill Loser]

Moderate to high deer density here. What could possibly go wrong? Lok

 

[swat1018]

I had the same conversation with my wife this fall after a disappointing time trying to find a good tree also. There is a Christian non profit youth center in town that I am thinking of reaching out to for the sales and labor end of things. Was thinking of placing a second order for trees through the local SWCD office for the Christmas tree seedlings.

You might check, most SWCD and state nurseries won't allow seedling sales meant for resale. Not sure how they'd catch ya, though.

 

[bwoods11]

Looks nice TC. Congrats to you and the family. You have many apple trees left or sold out?

 

[Turkey Creek]

You might check, most SWCD and state nurseries won't allow seedling sales meant for resale. Not sure how they'd catch ya, though.

Yea some have that policy. Others dont care, Kansas being one of them. They actually list Christmas tree farms as a use for their trees on the website. Problem for us is they have gone to only growing containerized stock for the most part. Which is more costly for us and gives us a smaller seedling from the start. We are trying to circumvent some of the govt beaucracy and get trees from another govt agency. We are buying them sight unseen which makes me a bit concerned. They are the same price as the other seedlings we are getting from a private source, but almost impossible to find a supplier of Southwestern White Pine seedlings.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Looks nice TC. Congrats to you and the family. You have many apple trees left or sold out?

We have a decent number of apples left, sold out of some varieties already. Inventory on other fruit varieties is getting pretty low.