CRAWFORDSVILLE — From visits with Santa to picking out the perfect Christmas tree, Christmas is packed full of traditions. Selecting the ideal tree for the holidays is a special memory for Rachel Stine. She wanted to bring that joy to other Hoosier families, so she and her husband Matt went to work and now own and operate Oak Hill Tree Farm in Crawfordsville.
Rachel says getting Matt on board with the project did take a little convincing.
“He told me he was allergic. He wasn't. And so we got our first Christmas tree, our first year married, and then brought one home each year as we had kids,” Rachel recalled.
In 2018, the Stines bought some farmland in Crawfordsville where they planted eight acres of trees. However, Matt says starting a Christmas tree farm comes with unique challenges.
“That's why we have the pumpkins and things like that, is that we needed something to pay the bills while we were waiting for the trees to develop," said Matt.
The trees grow about a foot per year. That means it takes about eight years to grow a seven to eight-foot tree to sell. In 2024, six years after the first trees were planted, the Stines were finally ready to sell the first of their you-cut Christmas trees.
But growing Christmas trees in Indiana is far more than just planting them and then waiting to cut them down.
"Actually, it's not a great place to grow Christmas trees. There's one or two varieties that do well down here, but we are the work of the farmer is to convince the tree that it likes to be here, which takes a little bit of effort," Matt said.
Rachel says it's a year-round job getting the trees ready to take center stage.
“You just get trees that will grow out more than consumers desire. We take a kind of a machete-type knife and we'll cut it into that conical shape each and every year. So, it has to be trained starting from about the second or third year it's in the ground, and then every year through harvest, we shape it, and it just helps it to fill out and look beautiful," she said.
With 20,000 trees, not to mention acres of pumpkins, each family member lends a hand. That means it’s less of a summer break and more like summer work for the Stine's four kids.
Campbell and Everett shared their favorite jobs on the farm.
"Probably planting trees. Yeah, planting trees.”
Campbell and Everett both agree it’s their favorite because it's not something they have to do in the blazing heat.
Matt and Rachel say the year-round work required to get Oak Hill Tree Farm to where it is today has also been a learning process.
"We tried planting Frasier fir, which is the kind of the Cadillac of a Christmas tree. That's what grows really well in the mountains of North Carolina, wonderful trees. We planted some and we planted some Canaan Firs next to them, and those Canaans just have acclimated to our climate here. It's a little more humid and hot here than they get in the North Carolina mountains, so they're a great Christmas tree, and they actually grow better on our Indiana soils."
The hard work pays off in late November as families get a chance to make their own memories on the Stine’s farm.
Rachel says families have the option of doing it the old-fashioned way.
"It's not that easy to cut a tree down with a handsaw, but that's part of the fun of it, you know. The kids argue about which tree is the best. They settle on one. Mom snaps the photos while the dad is on the ground, and then they bring it up."
If that's more than you bargained for, there will be pre-cut trees available too. And once you pick out that tree, Matt has learned a thing or two about how to make it last all the way through the Christmas season.
"One, just make sure that you have a fresh cut on the bottom that the sap hasn't sealed over so that it can take up water. And two, is to keep it watered. Now you don't want to put it next to a heat vent. You don't want to have it someplace that's in the hottest part of the house or whatever so that it doesn't dry out," he said.
Once the trees are cut at Oak Hill Tree Farm, a new sapling is planted to replace them. That ensures the farm will be able to provide Christmas trees and family memories for generations to come.
Don't head to the farm just yet, though. The pumpkins and Christmas trees aren't quite ready. Dates and hours will be announced soon on the farm's website.
