‘Kasching’ it in
Tree farm owner ready to close
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
POLSON — After 30 years of selling Christmas trees, Marvin Kaschke has said this season will be his last.
Nebraska native Kaschke, 84, moved to Polson in 1988 and shortly thereafter began growing trees. He had purchased 11 acres at 37488 Kerr Dam Road while working as manager of the National Bison Range, which he did from 1968-77. Kaschke then moved to Lakeview, Oregon before retiring and moving to Polson.
Kaschke said he initially planted 5,000 blue spruce and followed that up in subsequent years with Scotch pine, Fraser Fir and Douglas Fir.
Today he’s sells Grand, Concolor, Fraser and Douglas fir.
Initially, Kaschke began taking his trees to Boise, Idaho to sell, which he did from 1991-2000. Then he started selling them from his Kerr Dam Road property.
Kaschke has averaged about 175 tree sales per holiday season, which runs from the day after Thanksgiving to the day before Christmas.
Customers come from Kalispell to Florence. He believes they like to walk around his six-acre tree farm and pick their own tree, which he cuts for them.
Kaschke employs a “stump culture” method when cutting down a tree. This involves leaving a couple of branches at the bottom from which the tree can grow back. . He does this because it is faster than growing a tree from a seedling, for example. It takes 6-7 years using the stump culture method and 8-9 using a seedling, he said.
Kaschke plans to close his tree farm after this year’s season, but doesn’t intend to sell.
“It just got to be more work than I wanted to do,” he said. “There’s a lot of work, and it’s not a big moneymaker.”
Kaschke said he had one of four tree farms in Lake County when he started in 1988. Now he believes he has the only one.
After the holidays, Kaschke, whose wife Janet died in 2013, plans to do more traveling to see his three children and seven grandchildren, who live in Oregon and California.
