Meet Gordon Page Of High Meadow Farm

By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul

Gordon and Carolyn Page grow Christmas trees on about 4½ acres on their Strafford property. With 10 acres in current use, including the Christmas trees, the other space is occupied by large vegetable and flower gardens and several fruit trees.

“We’re situated at the edge of the Blue Hills area. We’re up at an elevation of 860-plus feet,” Gordon says. “We’re kind of a microclimate.”

Gordon, a civil engineer who retired 16 years ago from the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, and Carolyn, a retired educator, got into Christmas tree farming as “a retirement project.” They planted their first trees in 1989 and have been selling trees since the mid-1990s.
They harvest about 400 cut-your-own Christmas trees each year.

We caught up with Gordon June 5 to talk about his retirement project. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Where did you get the idea to start a Christmas tree farm?
My wife has sister-in-law in New Jersey that did it, and we had this land. About 3 acres was in woods. The rest was a former pasture for a horse farm. It’s real flat. The land wasn’t being used for anything, so I thought this would be a fun project.
What kinds of trees do you grow?
I’ve planted quite a few varieties: Fraser fir and balsam, Canaan fir (a balsam that’s native to West Virginia). I’ve got 650 Korean firs now.
How do you decide what kinds of trees to plant?
I’ve had problems the last couple years with root rot with Fraser firs. That’s why the last couple of years I’ve switched to the Canaans and the Korean firs, which are supposed to be resistant. I have a real heavy soil here, and the Canaans do well in heavy soil.
How did you learn about tree farming?
I became active in the marketing committee for the New Hampshire-Vermont Christmas Tree Association. And I picked everybody’s brains every time I’d go to a meeting. I actually made quite a few mistakes in the beginning. The first trees I planted were white spruce, which I found out most people don’t like. I planted about 1,000 of those. Then I planted Scotch pine, which people also don’t like. I finally got to balsam and Fraser firs. We’ve put up an electric fence – the first 500 balsams I planted, the deer devastated them.
Do you have a hired staff?
It’s mainly my wife and me. The last two years we had a friend from Sacramento, California, fly out to help us. He thinks it’s great to be in the tree business at Christmas time. Generally we have one teenager helping us during the selling season.
When does your busy selling season start?
People start coming to tag trees Columbus Day weekend. We start selling Thanksgiving weekend. Carolyn makes a couple hundred wreaths and decorates them to sell. She starts about November 1st making wreaths. You’re supposed to wait until after the second frost to start cutting brush.
Have you been happy in your retirement project?
Yeah. It’s small enough so that if I want to take off and go fishing or something I can do it. There’s nothing to do in January, February and March. It’s about mid-April when you get busy. Last year we went to New Zealand for three weeks in January. We’ve done a lot of shorter trips in the summer.
What’s your favorite part about raising Christmas trees?
I like to be outdoors. That’s one of the reasons I took up civil engineering, but I found myself in an office most of the time. Seeing the people each year. Most of our customers are pretty loyal, they keep coming back. And seeing their kids grow up.
What is something that you don’t enjoy as much?
All the mowing. I try to keep the grass mowed between the trees. That keeps me busy in the summer. There’s the shearing in the spring. But I don’t really mind those things.
What is something the average Christmas tree buyer might not realize about growing trees?
I suppose that they don’t think about that the trees are giving off oxygen. And they preserve the land, which is very important, especially in southern New Hampshire.
What do you do besides raise Christmas trees?
I hunt. Both of us are involved in the Bear-Paw Regional Greenways (a regional land trust). It started out trying to get a greenway between Bear Brook State Park and Pawtuckaway State Park. They’re active in Rockingham and Strafford counties. And I’ve climbed the 100 highest peaks in New England. I’ve climbed New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-footers in winter. Carolyn’s climbed all the New England 4,000-footers. That was in our younger years. We still hike, but we’re not that serious anymore.

Meet Marshall Patmos of Farmstead Acres

By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul

Marshall Patmos and his wife Pati manage 60 acres of land. Five to six acres of their Farmstead Acres property in Westmoreland, N.H., is planted with about 6,000 Christmas trees. The property also includes 35 acres of forest managed for timber sales, and open fields where a few “retired” sheep and about 25 chickens roam. When Marshall and Pati’s two daughters were younger, the family had about 30 sheep, raised for meat and wool. Both girls raised sheep for 4-H.

Farmstead Acres sells about 350 cut-your-own Christmas trees each year, mainly to local folks, but also to some out-of-staters. They grow mostly Balsam firs, but also have some Fraser firs.

Marshall is a retired UNH Extension forester, a job he held for 38 years. He was the Coos County Forester in Lancaster for 10 years, then was Chesire County Forester for the remainder of his career. He and Pati have been at Farmstead Acres about 25 years and have been selling Christmas trees for about 23 years. The first trees were hauled out by a Shetland pony pulling a tarp.

Marshall and Pati have two daughters, who help out at Farmstead Acres. Their 8-year-old grandson and 6-year-old granddaughter are also starting to get involved in the family’s tree farm, and their 6-month-old grandson may also be a future tree farmer.

We caught up with Marshall in May. Here’s what he had to say about managing the land and growing Christmas trees:

How did you get involved in Christmas tree farming?

I had worked with the industry anyway. I was very familiar with the industry. I had worked with Christmas tree growers. I was on the board of directors of the NH-VT Christmas Tree Association for years and years, on different committees. I wanted to keep the land active. I was the state Extension Christmas Tree specialist until I retired. The real way to teach people is to do it yourself.

Do you have a staff?

It’s just really family. We hire a couple of teenagers during the Christmas season. People cut their trees, and we’ll bring it down for them if they don’t want to bring it down. We also have a Christmas shop, with wreaths and decorations, cocoa and coffee and mulled cider. We sell some crafts. We get the wreaths somewhere else, but we decorate them here.

How many family members are involved?

Five or six. Our older grandson is getting excited about it, and our granddaughter. He’s 8 and she’s 6. They’re right next door. He comes and helps with the trees, and she tests the cocoa and stuff – someone has to do it!

Do you plant trees each year?

Yes, about as many as we cut.

What is your favorite thing about being a tree farmer and managing the land?

Seeing the satisfaction of the customers, bringing a little joy into a home. Producing something that a family enjoys and that’s traditional for them. That’s pretty touching. Providing them with an adventure. I enjoy seeing the land kept active, too.

What is the most challenging part of being a tree farmer?

Just doing things in a timely manner, doing things when you’ve got to do it. Even though I’m retired now, I still have a lot to do. I don’t have a lot of free time, which is OK. You’ve got to make hay while the sun shines with any agricultural crop.

What did being the Extension Forester involve?

Well, just helping people with the woodland. We’d examine property and make a recommendation for how to best manage their property, whether it was Christmas trees or woodland. I worked with Crhistmas trees, maple producers, a wide array of things. We’d work with other agencies. Education is the important part. There are also agriculture agents. That’s where 4-H is.

If you have any time after managing your land and helping care for the grand-kids, what do you do?

I’m still a licensed professional forester. I have a 1787 Cape house to keep livable. I’m also chairman of the New England Christmas Tree Alliance. We travel a little bit. I like to hunt and fish and just dub around.

Most people probably only think about Christmas trees when they’re picking one out each year to decorate. What is something about growing Christmas trees that people might not know?

A lot of people don’t realize that it takes eight to 10 years to grow a tree. You have to shape a tree every year to make it look pretty. There’s a host of insects and diseases that we have to monitor for, too. Christmas trees are a crop, just like corn, planted specifically to be grown and keep land open, provide some wildlife habitat.

Time to start thinking Christmas?

It's August, but most NH Christmas Tree Farmers are planning for Christmas.