{"id":945,"date":"2022-11-11T11:26:39","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T11:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland\/?p=945"},"modified":"2024-11-08T11:13:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:13:53","slug":"oh-christmas-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/heart-of-the-county\/oh-christmas-tree\/11-2022","title":{"rendered":"Oh! Christmas Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get ready for the festive ritual of choosing a fresh, beautifully scented tree to decorate your home… this month we meet Gill Miller and the family at North Luffenham\u2019s Digby Farm, home to enough Christmas trees to supply a quarter of Rutland\u2019s homes!<\/h3>\n
\"Digby
Digby Farm, Rutland.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If You Were to raise a glass of something festive to Gill Miller and family in the run up to Christmas, we\u2019d suggest a toast that goes something along the lines of \u2018may next year bring plenty of rain, and far fewer rabbits.\u2019<\/p>\n

There are about 20,000 households in Rutland and as Digby Farm harvests about 5,000 trees, a year, that\u2019s the equivalent of one each for a quarter of all homes in the county. Of course, it\u2019s not quite that simple, because Digby Farm\u2019s customers also visit the place from Stamford, Leicester, Peterborough and even further afield. Nevertheless, if you find yourself admiring a really beautiful tree somewhere in Rutland at some point over the festive season, there\u2019s a good chance that if came from the North Luffenham Farm.<\/p>\n

The family supplies Wicksteed Park and Nene Valley with their monster trees, and also the tree that appears in the Market Place of Uppingham during Fatstock.<\/p>\n

But by far the most popular trees aren\u2019t those which grow to 23ft, they\u2019re the 6ft ones which many Rutlanders take home, usually on the last weekend of November so they can put up and decorate their tree ready for 1st December… which means Gill and the family are about to be very busy indeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe soil isn\u2019t ideal here, so we have to work quite hard, but we\u2019ve been producing Christmas trees for the area since 1991,\u201d says Gill.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristmas trees aren\u2019t especially good for rotating with other arable crops, but we tend to leave a field fallow after we\u2019ve harvested trees so that it can rest. Over the years, too, we\u2019ve planted so many trees and incorporated back into the soil so much organic material, including tree roots from harvested trees, that the soil has become more acidic, which the trees love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRabbits are a pest, and we\u2019d always like to have a bit more rain. This year has seen an exceptionally dry spring and summer which hasn\u2019t been ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

By far the biggest challenge of being a Christmas tree farm, beyond the obvious issue that your crop is only in demand once a year, is that trees take so long to grow… about a foot each year, in fact.<\/p>\n

So when you take your 6ft Christmas tree home, it\u2019s probably eight years old, having been established for a couple of years before shooting skyward for six years or so. The farm covers over 150 acres with about half of it dedicated just to Christmas trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no convenient or automatic way to irrigate the farm if we don\u2019t get enough rain, so we\u2019re at the mercy of nature a little in that respect, and neither is there an automated way to harvest them at this scale either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s down to the team to venturing into the fields at this time of year with a chainsaw and a tractor & trailer to ensure we can keep the Christmas shop continually stocked with nice fresh trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe open to the public from about 25th November and it\u2019s become a regular ritual for many people; the start of their festive season. They enjoy a walk through the fields, with a cup of coffee or a hot chocolate, and have a wander, just enjoying the scent of the trees and the fresh air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we\u2019re asked to cut a specific tree for a customer but most of the time we\u2019ve something of the right size and shape already cut. When we harvest we\u2019re always selective, choosing trees which aren\u2019t effected by pests and which have a nice healthy appearance and a good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to make a tree last through to Christmas is to make sure it\u2019s fresh. We\u2019re cutting daily throughout the season so ours are really as good and as fresh as they get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the sap hasn\u2019t sealed the base of our trees yet there\u2019s no need to cut the bottoms off, just make sure they\u2019re secured in a really good quality stand and given plenty of water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for our family, we don\u2019t tend to put our tree up until 24th December. We\u2019re completely exhausted by that time as we\u2019re all so busy right up to Christmas itself, but we\u2019ll also be on a real high, knowing that we\u2019ve helped to make so many people\u2019s Christmas really special!\u201d<\/p>\n

Digby Farm has been selling Christmas trees to the public for 30 years from their family Christmas tree farm and its Christmas shop, located in North Luffenham, LE15 8LF. Call 01780 678508 or see www.digbyfarm.co.uk.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get ready for the festive ritual of choosing a fresh, beautifully scented tree to decorate your home… this month we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[280,281,282,76],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heart-of-the-county","tag-christmas","tag-festive","tag-seasonal","tag-tree"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}