Ten thousand Fraser Fir have been basal pruned which is rather a back breaking task but is well worth it saving time at harvest and creating a better shaped tree.

The young transplants are on their way from Scotland and we have made the decision to plant 50% Nordman Fir, 50% Fraser Fir. The spades are sharpened and ready for planting in April. Hopefully we will plant a large proportion of trees by machine though we always have a few areas too steep for the tractor-that's one disadvantage of being in Wales but it does mean we are very fit and produce fine rugby players that can beat the English and win the Grand Slam!

April was another busy month down on the Christmas Tree farm - did we ever really think we could plant a tree, walk away for eight years and come back to something we could sell? We have managed to plant 15,000 trees - 10,000 were machine planted and 5000 were hand planted.

The Nordman Fir have been fork pruned to produce a well proportioned tree and they are starting to look rather impressive! Hopefully we will not have a late frost which would damage the new shoots.

As we move into May we are on the look out for aphids and cones. Cones on Fraser Fir have to be hand picked and are becoming a real problem. If anyone out there knows how to stop Fraser Fir from producing cones please let us know.

We are hoping to secure access to a large number of Noble Fir which will enable us to supply large non needle drop trees at a reasonable price and foliage and the related products such as wreaths and garland for the coming season.

As we feared in our April update we did indeed get some late frosts in May and this year they were particularly severe. Luckily as they occurred around the middle of the month the only damage was to some of the Norway Spruce. However we have been very fortunate regarding coning. Many Fraser growers throughout the country have been picking cones yet we seem to have escaped with only a handful of trees producing cones. This has saved a lot of time and is a good sign that the trees are under no stress.

The fertiliser has been applied but this also sets off a few weeds so we have had to do something about the thistles and cleavers that wanted to make an appearance.

The British Christmas Tree Growers Association had their first open day of the season at Dinmore Christmas Tree Farm courtesy of Colin and Davina Griffiths. It was an excellent day and everyone left very impressed with the quality of the trees - especially the Fraser Fir.

Although there was yet another frost in early June we seem to have escaped without any serious damage. The aphids made their usual Spring appearance but all fields under attack were treated very quickly without any damage to the crop. We can now start to see what we will have available for the coming season and the Frasers particularly are looking extremely promising.

We have now secured access to over 100,000 Noble Fir. We will have large Noble Fir and Noble Fir foliage available and are currently working to produce some premium smaller trees.

To try and make harvest as efficient as possible we have purchased an automatic netting machine from Denmark and a second pallet machine for the yard. We have already purchased our own truck so we have total control of our deliveries and can accommodate those late orders so everything is in place for the coming season which is only four months away! .