Early July Around the Farm
I hope you all had a pleasant Fourth of July holiday. I had a fun and restful time at my home in East Hampton. I returned from Turkey last Wednesday afternoon. The next day, Thursday, I was busy preparing for my new television season, which we begin taping this week. On Friday, I spent the entire day with Chef Pierre, preparing some final menus for my upcoming entertaining book. It’s been a long time in the works and I cannot wait for it to be in print. It’s going to be a really beautiful volume. In between all that, there is always time to tour around the farm.
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- I asked Shaun to pick me very thin stalks of rhubarb for a special dessert for the new entertaining book photo shoot.
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- The vegetable garden is strong and healthy.
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- This curly leaf is kale – Winterbor
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- This is an heirloom variety called True Black Brandywine.
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- Thankfully, the tomatoes are growing beautifully this year.
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- The cabbages are forming nice heads.
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- These are stalks of Brussels sprouts – Bubbles.
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- A row of garlic
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- The eggplant patch
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- This white variety is eggplant – Casper.
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- The edible pea pods are still growing like crazy.
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- A thick row of Swiss Chard – Ruby Red
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- The flowers of garlic – Chrysalis Purple
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- Recently planted rows of radish – French Breakfast, lettuce – Merlot Batavian, radish – Early Scarlet Globe, and celeriac – Boule de Marbre
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- He also picked an assortment of fragrant herbs – thyme, sage, basil, and tarragon.
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- Meanwhile, Pierre was cooking feverishly in the kitchen, creating beautiful menus for the new book.
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- Gyurme mowing the lawn
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- Rufus, Clive, and Billy are enjoying the cool and clear day.
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- This is a seed head of a tree peony.
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- Large, showy, upright flower clusters produce fruits with husks that have thick, knobby spines. Usually a single, rounded, shiny brown seed is produced in each fruit.
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- These are the flowers of an Ohio buckeye.
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- Purba and Gelbu have just done the weekly cleaning out of the hen houses. The used wood shavings are taken to the compost area.
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- New wood shavings have been put down.
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- Three very happy hens busy at work.
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- These two hens look quite cozy.
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- Eggs just don’t come any fresher.
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- Gorgeous trumpet lilies in the cutting garden
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- Stunning pink and white trumpet lilies
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- Clusters of magenta flox
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- The showy flower heads of rudbeckia
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- And the stunning blooms of echinacea
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- Fragrant lavender – look closely – honey bees galore
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- A clear blue hydrandea
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- It’s also a good year for hydrangeas.
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- The hydrangeas are growing next to my ‘stone yard.’ All the stone used on the property is stored here – marble, granite, slate, etc.
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- These are the granite posts used for all of my pergolas.
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- Wooden stakes neatly stacked
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- A view of the cutting garden and the chicken coops beyond
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- 180-degrees in the other direction
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- A carriage road leading into the woods
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- Hundreds of little fish are caught in this standing water.
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- With very little rain lately, the streams are very dry.
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- Wind in the willows – I wish you could hear how great it sounds.
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- Wild raspberries are ripening in the woods – good food for birds and other small animals.
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- Two rows of edible grapes growing – call it Martha’s Vineyard!
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- We’ve added a fourth bee hive and all looks good.
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- Lots of honey bee activity
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- Because of the lack of rain, the sprinklers are being used all around the farm.
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- Between myriad other chores, Shaun prunes back the lower branches of a maple tree.
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- I’m concerned that the boxwood allee gets plenty of water so it doesn’t turn brown.
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- Another dried stream bed
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- I’m impressed with how quickly this line of metasequoias is growing.
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- Hmmm…an animal bone. Deer? Coyote?
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- Sweet Pepper – Yankee Bell
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- And eggplant – Diamond
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- My large Asiatic lily garden
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- The blooms are just beginning to open.
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- The apple espalier with ripening fruit
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- Not too much more to go!
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- The gravenstein espalier trees also look great!
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- Photographer – Frédéric Lagrange – was busy photographing each plate.
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- Frédéric is an excellent fashion, travel, portrait, and lifestyle photographer. http://www.fredericlagrange.com/
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- One of his well-used cameras that he takes on his world travels.
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- She’s getting a summer wardrobe ready because we start taping next week for my new television show.
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- In the basement, Annie, my wardrobe stylist, is steaming a blouse.
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