Most people don't give much thought to finding a Christmas tree until sometime around Thanksgiving. Throughout the spring and summer, when the holiday season is far from most people's minds, Christmas tree farmers are doing their planting, mowing, weeding, spraying and trimming to keep the trees on track.
Several years pass before any tree is ready to harvest.
If you can imagine a job where you're not going to get paid for eight years, that's the Christmas tree business. Steve Hinrichs, owner of the Spring Ranch Tree Farm west of Fairfield, said many tree farms don't stay in business long because their operators didn't understand the commitment they were making. Wilcox, who grows Scotch and Austrian pines, started his tree business in 1977 to make what he hoped would be the best use of some family pasture land. He plants 5,000 seedlings every four years. It's just got to be a labor of love.