The Origins of a Park Slope Christmas Tree

In New York, the logistics of getting a Christmas tree home can be quite the headache: sap on hands, trees tied to the hoods of taxis. But that journey—from sidewalk to apartment—is only the last leg of a long voyage.

In Park Slope, our trees travel from distant, greener lands, like the organic Windswept Farm in northeastern Vermont. 

Mostly Balsam-Fraser hybrids, every December for the last 15 years Windswept Farm's lush, organic and sweet-smelling firs have awaited their final destination, neatly stacked, beside the Park Slope Food Co-op on Union Street.

"People like that the trees are from Vermont," said Bucky Shelton on Saturday morning as he prepared for the busiest sales weekend of the year. "There is definitely a mystique about Vermont: the place, the people, the pride they take in their products."

Shelton helps his friend and year-round carpentry partner, Adam Parke, with his Christmas tree business by selling firs at the co-op location. Parke transports trees each year from his herbicide- and pesticide-free Windswept Farm to six spots around Brooklyn: in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Windsor Terrace and Clinton Hill, as well as at a second location in Park Slope, All Saints Church, at Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street.

On Union, Christmas wreaths and bottles of maple syrup supplement the trees. The syrup comes from Shelton's farm, where each year he produces up to 2,500 gallons of thick amber from 5,000 taps.

The trees, though, are longer in the making, with some of the largest 14-footers growing for up to 12 years on the rolling slopes north of White Mountain National Forest. The sellers use long, white measuring sticks marked in feet to gauge the height of the trees, which are then sold for $10 per foot.

Trees arrive at Windswept Farm as 8- to 12-inch transplants from nurseries, mostly in Canada.  They are hand-planted with a planting bar and a firm heel, Shelton said, 1,000 saplings per acre "stamped in by foot." They settle in for a few years before growing to harvest potential, drinking in sun, rain and the soil's nutrients.

Maintaining the trees during these years requires a lot of mowing, Shelton said, as "grass slows them down."

"Sometimes they get mowed over because you can't see them," he said. For those that make it, however, chainsaw meets trunk each November.

Dustin Bodette, 15, helped with the harvesting this year and on Saturday turned up with Ned Andrews to lend extra hands during the busy weekend. On the farm, he helped pass felled trees through a tractor-hauled "baler," which enables harvesters to wrap each fir with plastic netting.

Whenever Shelton made a sale on Saturday, Bodette and Andrews slid the tree through a smaller, stationary version of the baler to saw off a fresh trunk-end and wrap trees that required netting. Slicing a few inches from the pitch-sealed base lets the tree take up water more easily and stay fresh longer.

"I know this is [Shelton's] busy weekend, so I came down as a friend to help," Andrews said. "It's fun to come into the city. It's a change of pace."

Andrews and Bodette were spending two nights across the street with Shelton, who lives at a friend's place all month. Before selling begins December 1, trees make the seven-hour drive from Vermont on four or five trailer beds and are stored at several of the sales locations throughout December. They are then transported early in the morning to the various sites as needed. 

Two years ago, because of the recession, Parke sent fewer trees than usual to Brooklyn. That, however, turned out to be a mistake, Shelton said.

"People are pretty much guaranteed to buy a Christmas tree," he said. "They just might not put as much under the tree."

"It's just not Christmas without a tree," he said.

Trees, stands, wreaths and maple syrup are sold between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily through Dec. 24 at 780 Union Street.