Daniel Weeber

We have the 1000 trees on one acre. It takes about 7 years to get to first harvest.

For best results, you should buy trees from a nursery that is at an elevation similar to your home.

It does sound like a great tradition! I think you'll both really enjoy it.

I'm tempted to build one of these. Where I live, a lot of people have horses, but they also don't really want the horse manure. It's pretty easy to pick up two truckloads of manure in less than an hour. Anyone see a problem in using horse manure for this setup?

Thanks,
Daniel

Christmas Tree season is about to start once again (the day after Thanksgiving). This year, I mowed the grass/clover 4 times in between the trees and I removed a few stumps. This took me about 14 hours total. I believe its pretty important to select the right ground cover mix for the trees, because it could help with fertilization. My ground cover could use some work, but I also didn't use any fertilizer this year.

I did not "shape" the trees, which would have taken much more time. I personally think that this only needs done every other year. I'm planning to spend about another 16 hours over the next week mowing the ground cover again and cleaning up the yard / trees. I will likely spend a significant amount of time helping customers though. I'd still recommend this to anyone that is looking for a winter income. The customers are thrilled when they visit, and it's really a pleasure to have such a fun customer base.

For next year, I've been bouncing around the idea of planting pumpkins in between the trees and raising heritage turkeys to create more of a "holiday" location. (The turkeys would be for sale for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and the pumpkins would be for Halloween and pies). My concern is that the pumpkins will climb the trees and break some of the limbs. However, expanding like this could produce income for October, November, and December.

I've seen other value added activities, such as corn mazes, pumpkin cannons, pony rides, santa pictures, etc, but I don't really like the idea of creating an amusement park.

I would also add wild edibles to that list. I hadn't considered it when I bought my property, but I have come to really enjoy my effortless blackberries, acorns, walnuts, pine nuts, plums, figs, and mint!

Additionally, I would also add proximity to civilization. While I prefer not to be too close to civilization, I believe that there are many benefits to being within a 15 to 30 minute drive (medical attention, shopping, markets to sell at...).

I took a gamble by planting a little early this year, and I lost! We had a frost two nights ago; however, everything on my hugel bed survived the night. There were no other survivors. I'm not sure if there are other factors that may have caused this, but I thought ya'll might be interested.

Hello!

I am in a situation where we have about one foot of topsoil, and then we hit bedrock. I've looked into buying soil, but it seems to be very expensive! Any tips on places to find cheap soil, or cheap compost ingredients?

My other thought was to grow my own soil by sowing plants that produce large amounts of biomass, and then using them to create gigantic amounts of compost. I may have to add nutrients to go this path, but it seems to me like it would still be less expensive; however, it would of course be a lengthy and sweat intensive process. Any suggestions on which plants to grow?

The land is relatively flat, so I could mow it fairly frequently and collect the clippings.

Thank you in advance for your ideas!

Hello:

I am looking for advice on planting a hedge to serve the following functions:
-Deer Resistant
-Beautiful
-Minimal or Easy Maintenance (For example, I wouldn't mind cutting down butterfly bushes once a year in the fall, so that they could spring back to life the next year...but, I don't want anything with thorns, selective pruning requirements, or reseeding requirements. The ideal scenario would be zero maintenance though.)
-Self Fertilizing (Nitrogen)
-Potentially a source of food or other useful materials. (However, this may conflict with my goal of deterring deer).

I plan to plant the hedge along a fenced-in garden. I would like the hedge to be tall/thick enough, once full grown, to deter any deer from jumping into my garden.

Do you have any plant recommendations for Zone 8A? I hope to plant enough variations in the hedge so that disease cannot take over the entire hedge at once.

Hi Kevin,

We are located in Placerville, CA. Here is a link to our average weather history: http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/95667

We get roughly 35 - 40 inches of rainfall per year (we have to irrigate a bit in the summer when rainfall is minimal). We grow Douglas Fir, Nordmann Fir, and Redwood. The neighbors grow the same species, with some White Fir and Blue Spruce.

So far, the work for us has been minimal; however, the prior homeowners did the hard part of establishing the trees for us. I would recommend avoiding trees that require intensive pruning, and I would suggest a tree choice that lets nature do the work for you. I would also suggest that you plant several different species, because people seem to be very set on buying certain species (this even included the redwoods). Most people bought our Douglas Firs. Regarding redwoods, they are a pain to take care of, because they have nasty thorns and stiff needles. It should be noted that I do not have any prior experience in generating income from land and that when I say "minimal," I am just thinking it was not very burdensome to my lifestyle. There could be better options to generate income for you and your land.

Prior to jumping into a Christmas Tree Farm, I would definitely consider the location of my land (you might need intensive marketing if you don't have good road frontage), and I would consider the number of customers I could expect to get given the population of my area. I think that customers also get a certain thrill from hunting for the perfect tree, so I would shoot for 2+ acres of planted trees at the very least.

Daniel

Hello,

We recently purchased our home, and it came with roughly 1000 Christmas Trees. We just held our first weekend of "choose and cut." We sold our trees for $35 + $3/foot after the first 8 feet. Our next door neighbors also have Christmas Trees, and we worked together this weekend. Collectively, we sold roughly 75 trees (including one giant 18 footer). Between our two properties, we have about 500 feet of road frontage on a frequently traveled two lane road. Except for three signs on the road, we did zero marketing; however, the neighbors have been selling trees for about 15 years, and there were many repeat customers.

One thing I was surprised about was how nice and happy the customers were! It was a very pleasant experience. I would not recommend a choose and cut farm for unsociable permies.

While our main source of income is my work from home job, the Christmas Trees are a nice bonus! My initial take on the trees is that they would not be lucrative enough to base an entire income off of, but it could be a good component to a homestead income. The revenue comes during the winter, and the trees really do take minimal care. (We trimmed them this summer, and we mowed the grass once or twice a month all year. The deer don't eat the trees, but they like to fight them.)

Many of our customers commented on how they prefer our trees, because we do not coppice to produce two trees at once. We do coppice, but we only grow one tree. Our trees are spaced 48" apart, and we have not had a problem with disease. We currently grow grass around the trees, and at some point I want to switch that to clover (and/or plant some nitrogen fixing trees).

Regarding too many large trees: If you have many trees that will grow past your preferred height, cut them and donate them to a church or trees for troops. You will get a small tax benefit, and you can grow another tree from that healthy stump.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

(I had meant this post to be a reply to another Christmas Tree Farm thread, but clearly I am more technology illiterate than I thought. If you could merge it at some point, I would be grateful).