Too early for Christmas? That’s not the case for Christmas tree growers. Although real Christmas trees adorn our homes, offices and other locales during the brief holiday season, what Christmas tree farmers — like Western Washington state’s John Tillman — perform is year-round work to make that merchandise available to consumers. Well, OK, maybe not all year long.
“After harvest, typically, we’ll take a month off, roughly, because we have just worked 30 to 45 straight days.”
Getting orders for Christmas trees grown on his farm at other properties in the Evergreen State — shipped local, national, even around the world — during the holiday season. So, about this time of year for John and his crew:
“September, October, we’re doing all our tagging for inventory. That gives us what numbers we have of what species, of what sizes for sale.”
Also being performed at Tillman’s Christmas tree farm: a task that started earlier this summer.
“We started culturing season in early July, and that will go through typically about the end of September, where we’re going out, straightening leaders, trimming sides of the trees — hopefully making sure that we have something that looks good for tagging.”
A lot of work. You say all that to make a real Christmas tree — one perhaps really yours during the holiday season — as beautiful and enjoyable as possible. Remember the part John Tillman said about taking a month off just before Christmas and into mid-January? That, in reality, is his only break in the calendar. So, well before September:
“Somewhere around mid-January, we start prepping our fields, which is removing stumps, doing some soil amenities with lime, things like that — getting our seedlings, and so up through the end of March, we’re planting trees and base pruning trees, putting the handles on the bottom so that the trunk goes in the stand nice and cleanly. Then through April through May, we’re checking for funguses and insects, things like that, making sure that we’re going to keep the trees healthy.”
Leading up to the late summer culturing period. And let’s not forget harvest, which starts in early November — a process the same as it was when Tillman started 30 years ago.
“We harvest the tree, we carry it out by hand so it’s not ever hitting the dirt. We put it through the baler, tag it accurately, get it to the loading areas — and hopefully doing that within two or three days of the ship dates.”
For John Tillman and other Christmas tree growers across the country, their passion is both producing for and educating the public about their product and their industry — designed to harvest a deeper appreciation by those who bring home a grown tree to decorate their home for the holidays.