A TREE “FIR” EVERY FAMILY
15 CHRISTMAS TREE FARMS, PLUS ADVICE ON CARING FOR YOUR TREE By Melissa Rubalcaba Riske | Photos provided by Larson’s Family Farm
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n average it takes seven years for a small sapling to grow into what will become the perfect 5- or 6-foot Christmas tree. In that time it must survive floods, droughts, deer that rub their antlers and create bare spots — and the list goes on. But with the right care, love and attention, that sapling will grow to fulfill its destiny of showcasing your treasured ornaments and twinkling lights.
So in 1983 the family decided to set aside a few acres to grow Christmas trees, cutting the first ones in 1990. Today they grow six different varieties of trees, each year planting 1,800 young trees. Most years, they can lose a couple hundred. (Last year they lost 500 due to the drought.)
For many small farms, that care is a family affair. At Larson’s Family Farm near Sandwich, Steve and Rhonda Larson have been tending to their trees since planting the first sapling in 1983. Today, their daughter, son-in-law and grandsons join them for stump removing, tree trimming, plantings and other chores.
Shortly after Steve and Rhonda took over, they looked for a new avenue and created a place where visitors could pick their own berries. Families traveled to Larson’s Berry Farm for 18 years to pick their own strawberries, raspberries and pumpkins too, but these crops weren’t a perfect fit, Rhonda Larson explains.
For more than a century now, Steve Larson’s family has been farming. His father was a corn and soybean farmer.
“Strawberries like sandy, light soil and you have to cut back thistles with raspberries,” she says.
But as the autumn evenings grow darker and shorter, the family prepares to welcome visitors who trek from across the suburbs — and even Chicago — to find their perfect tree. “Some people want a skinny tree. Others want a really fat tree. We have a little of everything,” Larson says. “Me personally, I want a 6-foot tree that I place on top of a 1-foot-tall box that my husband built. The stand is higher so it’s easier to water and all the presents fit under the tree.” On weekends she opens the Barn Store, filled with secondhand treasures. She says it’s not quite a garage sale, but not an antique store either. There’s bottled NEIGHBORHOOD TOURIST
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