Progress and Updates

may 2023

We picked up 1000 trees in early April from the west side of the state and so began our tree planting season.  We once again volunteered our farm to assist in the Fraser study at MSU.  They volunteered their freezers to store our trees until we were ready to plant them and could coordinate everything to get them in the ground. 

We took home 200 trees and hand planted them in April, and then in early May everything lined up to get the remaining 800 in the ground.  Our friends at Runyans once again lent us their tree planter which makes incredibly fast work to get a row of trees in the ground.  We planted the 400 Fraser firs with assistance from friends and family, as well as the research team led by Riley Rouse from MSU.  

October 2022

Our Pumpkin Patch was open every weekend starting September 24th until we moved the pumpkins to a Hay Wagon stand near our driveway on October 22nd.  We had 50-60 groups of people and families come by our pumpkin patch and are grateful for everyone's support.  As we move forward in years to come we hope to offer more of a pumpkin patch vibe with places for photos and places to hang out and some things for the kids to do.

september 2022

We have gone through the patch and cleared the weeds and did an inventory of what survived the summer.  Approximately 400 beautiful jackolanterns grew to varying sizes and thousands of gourds. 

June 2022

With the trees being so far from being sellable we wanted to try our hand at some other popular agritourism.  We started a no-till pumpkin patch by creating 250 mounds of horse manure and topsoil mixed. Each mound then got 3 Seeds of varying pumpkin variety's.  Not all seeds germinated and there was some culling as the plants grew, but all in all they are growing wonderfully through the first week in July.

April 2022

We were so fortunate this year to get assistance from fellow tree farmers and new friends Mike and Debby Case, owners of Runyan's tree farm who were able to bring their equipment down and help us plant our 2022 trees.  Also in attendance this year were Michigan States Riley Rouse and Dr. Bert Craig from the MSU department of Horticulture.  The farm is volunteering to be part of a research study for MSU this year.  

November 2021  

April 2021

We planted 920 trees in April over the course of 4 weeks or so.  Simultaneously building our home on the property made it challenging to make the time to get these into the ground but we are so happy they are in.