Re: X-mas tree farming It\'s really cheap to do!!
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Bloody peasant: You were going so good with advice and thank you for that. Then, you mentioned paintballs and my poor heart stopped. The thought of my babies being covered with bright paint scared me. I came up with this project with the intention of it merely providing my family and friends with trees. I think the correct phrase would be "hobby farm". If I start a big one acre project like this and spend only $1000 on it over the first 3-4 years, then that is $5 per week. That is less than the cost of a six pack. From reading hundreds of posts by you guys, I am sure your wives would be thrilled if your projects only cost $5 per week. However, stay tuned for one more announcement on my tree farm later this week. )</font>
LOL, Don't worry gordon the paint washes off and is very water soluable /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif But if you used a more permenant white paint you could get your frosting done for free if you are into that kinda thing /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
I don't know but maybe you have a lot of friends and family, but it seems like an acre would be a lot. Figure if you staggered them planting 1/8th of that per year so you end up with a continuous supply that's still up to 125 trees a year.
As for price assuming you already have mowers and other equipment (at a minimum a good weed eater) you are probably right on. Just don't go telling my wife about your $5 / week projects or I'll lose all my funding /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
I would also recommend buying at least 2 year old seedlings, we did the one year olds our first year and they didn't do as well getting established and had to replant a lot.
For planting we did the following:
1. We setup these fancy rigs that were basically mobile batter boards. They set on the row end stakes and were kind of self centering and self positioning over the stake.
2. Marked a length of builder's string every 6' from start to end and used that same string for each row.
3. Laid out and made sure our corners were square with each other. and carefully laid out our end row stakes. All of this was to make sure our rows were straight and our trees evenly spaced for easy mowing.
4. We used a dibble bar instead of a shovel. Google for it and you can find examples of them. Basically you stomp it into the ground, wiggle it back and forth, insert the tree to the proper depth, then stomp the dibble bar into the ground about 3" or so behind the first hole and wiggle it back and forth again. (With 2 people its a lot easier, one stomping and wiggling, and the other placing and holding the tree, by yourself you have to stomp the 2nd hold then simultaneously hold the tree at the proper depth while doing the wiggling). Then finally use your foot to finish closing up the hole around the tree.
This is like any other transplant basically in that you want the dirt nicely packed in around the roots so they can take hold and start getting nutrients.
Then after about a week we watered them once or twice along with a water based fertilizer.
Also plan if you are buying 1 or 2 year old seedlings, buy extra. At least 10% will be meek and pathetic looking or just not look worth planting. Also expect to lose about 10% of your planted seedlings that you will need to replant the next year.
We had a lot better luck with white pines vs. the scotch in our area (never tried any other kinds). The white grew faster and fuller, took a better shape, and just looked better in my opinion, plus they had this kinda blue-green look. The scotch grew slower and often died at the bottom and was real hard getting that classic pyramidal shape out of them. They often looked kinda "ballish".
