First Christmas: Wells couple opens tree farm 8 years in the making
WELLS, Maine — Both Ryan Liberty and his wife, Colleen Bovaird-Liberty, have fond memories of getting their family Christmas trees when they were kids.
Colleen said her father kept his eye out for the right tree as he hunted in the woods each approaching holiday season. He would chop down the tree and bring it home, where Colleen and her family would decorate it.
“To this day, if I smell artificial snow, I’m 7 years old,” Colleen said. “My dad would spray the trunk to brighten it up.”
Ryan said his father would see a 30-foot tree in the woods and set his heart on that one for the family living room. He didn’t want the whole tree. He just wanted the top part.
“We’d get it down, and of course, the top was never as good as it looked like from 100 yards,” Ryan chuckled.
Now, the couple is about to become a part of other families’ traditions and memories.
On Saturday, Nov. 18, they opened Crooked Brook Farm, their new Christmas tree business, at 220 Meetinghouse Road in Wells.
For about $70, you can cut down the tree that catches your eye and take it home for the holidays.
While at the farm, you can enjoy hot chocolate and baked apples, which will be heated up with a reflector oven next to a campfire. Such pleasures will be enjoyed next to a small building that was on-site when the Libertys bought the land. The couple has replaced the structure’s vinyl siding with wood straight from the trees Ryan chopped down nearby.
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Christmas tree farm was eight years in the making
Both Ryan and Colleen have spent much of their careers with Irving Oil. Ryan got the idea of starting his own farm from a colleague who had one and spoke with great joy and satisfaction about selling trees to families on the weekends.
“I never forgot that,” Ryan said.
Ryan saw an opportunity to have a side hustle to help prepare for retirement and also a chance to reinvent himself as a farmer.
In 2014, the Libertys bought acreage on Meetinghouse Road, first with the intent of building their new home but also with the vision of opening a Christmas tree farm. The farm has come first. Currently, there are large tree stumps in the clearing where the couple plans one day to build their home.
In 2015, Ryan started pursuing the vision for their new Yuletide enterprise. He chopped down trees, one by one, and, with the help of a neighbor with an excavator, removed those stumps. Over time, the clearing Ryan created started growing – and at one point, Ryan was able to start his first phase of planting trees.
Now, all these years later, that first phase is complete and filled with trees waiting for Santa to put gifts underneath them. All around them are seven other phases, with trees at various stages of growth.
In all, Crooked Brook Farm has around 4,000 trees, according to Ryan.
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Yuletide trees of all shapes and sizes
On Nov. 10, he and Colleen discussed their new business as they walked among their creations, which stood at assorted heights amid the remaining patches of snow that had fallen the day before.
The Libertys complement each other in what they bring to their business. Ryan is the “doer,” as Colleen said, out there clearing the land, planting trees and monitoring their growth. Colleen is the accountant, the one who’s good with the numbers.
As first-time farmers, the Libertys had a lot to learn. For his crash course, Ryan joined the Maine Christmas Tree Association and learned everything he could from the farmers in the organization. Ryan is now the president of the association.
To grow their trees, the Libertys buy seedlings from a farm that gets its seeds from an orchard the association started 40 years ago.
“If all goes well,” Ryan said, it takes about eight years for each tree to grow to 7 or 8 feet tall. Ryan said you can get close to 1,000 or 1,100 trees per acre if you create 7-foot rows and plant trees 6 feet apart.
These are award-winning trees, by the way. One tree at the head of the property boasts a red ribbon it won at the Fryeburg Fair this fall.
And there are a few “Charlie Brown” offerings here and there too. The Libertys keep them because of the affection for which such smaller, less fuller trees are known, thanks to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" special from the 1960s.
For example, one tree is what Colleen described as “deer-addled.” It stands tall and full enough, but its branches are short and uneven, reined in by deer that have sniffed it out as prime nourishment when there aren’t enough acorns or cedar buds lying around. Rather than chop down the tree, the Libertys have kept it standing – first, to keep the local deer well-fed, but also because surely some Charlie Brown-like soul will come along and make it their own.
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Christmas trees seeking a home for the holidays
By now, Ryan has identified the unexpected challenges and felt the surprising joys of farming Christmas trees and preparing them for people’s homes.
“A lot more than I ever imagined goes into trying to create a tree that somebody wants to bring home,” he added. “I would have never guessed that I’d take that much pleasure in nurturing a tree.”
Ryan and Colleen said they are looking forward to helping families decorate their homes for Christmas and becoming part of their memories and traditions – memories and traditions that they hope will span generations as their farm moves forward.
“One of my favorite parts of Christmas is nighttime when I turn the lights off in my house and turn my Christmas tree on,” Colleen said. “You just experience the Christmas season … It’s all common. Everyone can do that around their Christmas tree.”
Through Christmas, Crooked Brook Farm will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Crooked Brook Farm: Wells, Maine couple opens Christmas tree stand
