Here at my Bedford, New York farm, we're always working off a long list of gardening tasks. This time of year, my gardeners are constantly weeding the beds, pruning and grooming various specimens, or potting young plants in ornamental containers.
Last week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, planted a couple of stone vessels near my pool with sedum and various hens and chicks - those charming mat-forming succulents with fleshy pointed leaves arranged in rosettes. It's always nice to see these interesting plants displayed around the farm during the warm season.
Enjoy these photos.
Hens and chicks are members of the Sempervivum group of succulent perennials. They are also known as houseleeks. These plants form mats composed of tufted leaves in rosettes. We planted these hens and chicks a couple of years ago and they have been fine here since. Hens and chicks are winter hardy in growing zones 3 to 8. My farm is zone 6b.
I had a few more hens and chicks left over from another planting project. They were just enough to fill this small stone trough I have at the back of my pool area.
This urn is filled with a good quality potting soil. Using a proper soil mix will help to promote faster root growth and give quick anchorage to young roots. Fertilizer is also added.
Hens and chicks require minimum care. These plants do best in rocky, sandy places, flower beds, or pots with well-draining soil. These drought-tolerant specimens need very little water once they’re mature and can go weeks without watering. Once established, water them only when the surrounding soil dries out. They will fill up this container quickly.
In two larger planters, Ryan chooses to plant sedum. Sedum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, members of which are commonly known as stonecrops. This specific sedum is Hylotelephium ‘Plum Dazzled,’ a stonecrop mat-forming perennial with an abundance of fleshy pinkish purple leaves.
For this planting project, Ryan has a trowel and a Hori Hori. Named after the onomatopoeia of a digging sound, the Hori Hori knife is a gardening knife with a sturdy, wooden handle and a beveled blade. The translation of Hori in Japanese is the word “dig.”
There was already a top coating of fertilizer on this soil, but Ryan amends it with a fresh layer of soil and food.
Ryan adds some of our fast-draining composted potting soil that holds moisture but drains well.
In lieu of a shovel, Ryan uses these pots to scoop the soil into the planter. He uses two nesting pots turned, so the holes in the bottom are all closed.
Then, Ryan scoops a layer of composted soil into the planter.
Not only does it look better with a fresh layer of soil, it also adds fresh nutrients.
Then he adds a sprinkling of an all purpose granular fertilizer with equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. I always encourage feeding the plants – “if you eat, so should your plants.” Applying plant food during the growing season also helps support healthy growth and encourage blooms.
All the plants are spaced evenly in the trough before planting. This planter is long enough to accommodate seven plants each.
Ryan uses the trowel to dig a hole deep enough so that the top of the root ball is level with the surface of the soil.
Ryan carefully removes the plant from its pot…
… and then teases or scarifies the roots, meaning he fingers through the roots to loosen the strands and increase their volume. Teasing apart plant roots just before you are ready to plant stimulates them.
Next, he just places it into the planter soil at the same depth it was in its original container. These plants will grow raspberry-pink flowers this summer, which will entice bees and butterflies.
He does this for all six of the sedum plants. In a few weeks, these should grow well and fill the planter.
An identical planter is also filled with sedum on the other side of this area. Here, Ryan adds some soil surrounding the plantings and then lightly tamps down to establish good contact.
Here is a view from above after all the sedum is planted.
Because these plants also have fleshy leaves, they are also quite drought tolerant.
These stonecrop plantings will grow up to six to eight inches tall and 16-inches wide. They’ll be so pretty to look at through the season. Happy summer planting.
Another enjoyable garden tour at Cantitoe Corners!
One day last week, I opened my gardens for a private showing to The Garden Club of America Zone III. The tour was part of their annual business meeting. Just before the event, I spoke to the group at the nearby Bedford Playhouse about the creation and design of my gardens. And then it was just a brief ride to see all that was blooming at the farm. More than 120 guests attended. Afterward, we served a variety of refreshments and small bites, including Martha's Chard, Black Diamond caviar with homemade Melba toast, Murray's Stilton cheese with homemade brown butter shortbread biscuits, gougères and cheese and poppyseed puffed pastry straws made by PS Tailored Events. It was a lovely afternoon and a very enjoyable garden tour.
Enjoy these photos. You'll also see more of this tour on an upcoming episode of "Martha Gardens" exclusively on The Roku Channel, stay tuned.
I was so delighted to be a part of this year’s Garden Club of America Zone III annual horticulture conference. Here I am at the Bedford Playhouse, not farm from my farm, where I was interviewed as part of the program.
I spoke about the design and building of my Bedford gardens. I prepared a slide show of photos showing all the gardens currently at the farm. This is a photo of my upper and lower terrace parterre, just outside my Winter House kitchen. It is planted with large boxwood shrubs surrounded by a smaller hedge of boxwood and bright golden barberry.
After my presentation and interview at the playhouse, everyone drove to my farm for the tour. Because the group was so large, Ryan led one of four groups. The first stop was my new half-acre vegetable garden. He talked about its transformation from a donkey paddock to this lush and productive space for growing the most beautiful vegetables I’ve ever had.
Our three other group leaders were Wendy Norling, my gardener in Maine, my dear friend and EVP Director of Design at Marquee Brands, Kevin Sharkey, who knows about all my gardens past and present, and my Bedford gardener, Brian O’Kelly. Each carried signs, so guests would know where their group leader was at all times.
Nearly every bed was filled with beautiful vegetables. Kevin took a series of great images earlier in the morning – everything was just bursting with growth.
These are just three of the broccoli heads – each one more perfect than its neighbor. I picked one not long ago and it weighed two and a half pounds! Look at my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48 and see how much my cauliflower heads weighed. The vegetables are so robust and they’re so early – every day something new is ready to pick.
The group saw my tree peony border planted under the semi-shade of giant sugar maples near my Summer House. And Ryan talked about my extended azalea garden, where we planted hundreds and hundreds of azaleas.
The garden behind my Summer House is always a favorite stop on the tour. The boxwood look very lush and green. Ryan pointed out the tall, old Ginkgo tree at the back – the focal point of this garden.
They also saw the blooming Cotinus at the edge of the Summer House terrace.
Here are more shapely boxwood shrubs – these surround my massive herbaceous peony bed. Ryan explained how we care for the boxwood and cover all the shrubs with burlap every winter to protect them from the elements. He also explained how we use TopBuxus to keep them looking so healthy.
The group walked down the carriage road and saw my stand of tall bald cypress trees. Look closely, do you remember what the small structure beneath the trees houses? It’s my basket house – filled with dozens and dozens of baskets I’ve collected over the years.
On the left, my winding clematis pergola, with the clematis just starting to bloom on each granite post. Most species are known as clematis, but it has also been called traveller’s joy, virgin’s bower, old man’s beard, leather flower, or vase vine.
Over a section of my pergola are the climbing vines of my beautiful Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’ – the violet rambler also known as ‘Bleu-Violet’, ‘Blue Rambler’, ‘Blue Rosalie’ and ‘Violet Blue’ that bloom from May to June. Climbers always do best when well supported by a trellis or fence – one that is the appropriate height, width, and strength for the climber. It should be strong enough to hold the weight of a full-grown rose plant in both wet and windy weather. From the carriage road, one can see the abundance of pretty blooms – my guests loved to stop, take photos, and “smell the roses.”
Guests had the opportunity to walk through the main greenhouse and my flower cutting garden. Every group experiences a different tour when they visit the farm depending on what is blooming at the time.
There were still many lupines showing off their lovely colors.
And these delicate and beautiful irises.
I stopped to take this photo of Kevin and two guests from his group as they exited the flower garden – where to next?
The groups then strolled under the shade of my great pin oaks, Quercus palustris, with such distinguishable lower, middle and upper branches forming a most interesting growth habit.
The Boxwood Allée always grabs everyone’s attention.
And then at the end of the tour, we set up tables in my stable for our refreshments. These Cotinus branches with their billowy hairs looks so pretty and different.
We served delicious Black Diamond caviar on Melba toasts I made earlier in the morning. The parsley from the garden was so pretty, we used it to decorate the edges of platters.
If you’re wondering what to pair with Stilton Cheese, try it with brown butter shortbread – it is so delicious.
And of course, we had Martha’s Chard – play hard and drink Martha’s Chard. It was such a fun afternoon for all. Be sure to see more on an upcoming episode of “Martha Gardens” exclusively on The Roku Channel.
Our big hay baling project continues at my Bedford, New York farm.
Hay is a harvested plant that’s dried and cured after being cut in the field. In most cases, hay is cut during the late bud or early bloom stage to maximize its nutritional value. When I moved here, I designated three separate areas as hayfields, so I could grow lots and lots of delicious, nutritious hay for my horses and donkeys. Last week, my outdoor grounds crew worked hard to cut, fluff, rake, and then bale the hay in all three areas. We're all so excited about this first cut. In all, we got 1557 bales of hay, our biggest amount yet!
Here are some photos.
The windrows of cut, tedded, and raked hay are ready to bale. All my hayfields are planted with a custom mixture of orchard grass, tall fescue, and timothy seeds – all great for producing good quality hay. This day was dry and perfect for baling.
A hay baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport, and store. I am fortunate to have all the necessary equipment to process the hay in my fields.
Inside a box behind the baler is where large rolls of twine are positioned and tied to each other, so they can feed into the baler and secure the hay just before it shoots out into the trailer.
Here is the motor that helps to move and propel the bales into the wagon.
Chhiring pulls the baler with our trusted Kubota M4-071 tractor – a vehicle that is used every day here at the farm to do a multitude of tasks.
Chhiring starts the process midday when there is the least amount of moisture. The trailer fills up pretty quickly. Luckily, I have two hay trailers. Each one can hold about 150-bales. Chhiring drives up and down the windrows of all the hayfields which takes a good portion of the day.
The tractor rides to one side of the windrow while the baler passes directly over it to collect the hay. All the hay is dry and passing through the machine smoothly. If the hay is properly dried, the baler will work continuously down each row. Hay that is too damp tends to clog up the baler.
The hay is lifted by tines in the baler’s reel and then propelled into the wagon by a mechanical arm called a thrower or a kicker. The bales are manageable for one person to handle, about 45 to 60 pounds each.
A baled “square” is seen traveling up the conveyor belt. A measuring device—normally a spiked wheel that is turned by the emerging bales—measures the amount of material that is being compressed and then knotters wrap the twine around the bale and tie it off.
Chhiring goes evenly and slowly over every row of cut, tedded hay. Behind the baler is the hay trailer or wagon, which is used to catch the bales once they are formed and tied.
The hay trailer has high walls on the left, right, and back sides, and a short wall on the front side to contain the bales which are stacked neatly from back to front. Once a trailer is full, it is driven to the hayloft above my stable.
Then each bale is placed on a hay elevator which sends it up to waiting hands in the hayloft. Baling hay is a team effort. Each bale is about 15 by 18 by 40 inches large. The number of flakes in the bale is determined by a setting in the baler. Many balers are set for 10 to 12 flakes per bale.
Here, Juan is in the hayloft stacking the bales as they come up the hay elevator.
We collected so many bales, the overflow was brought to the run-in barn hayloft.
Now the fields are bare once again and ready to be aerated and seeded.
This is our Kubota Land Pride tow-behind spike aerator. We always aerate any field, pasture, or lawn space before seeding. The main reason for any aerating is to alleviate soil compaction. Compacted soils have too many solid particles in a certain volume or space, which prevents proper circulation of air, water, and nutrients. Aerating also improves drainage.
Here’s a closer look at the spikes of the aerator. These spikes perforate the soil at an adjustable depth as it moves through the field.
Heavy concrete weights are placed on the aerator weight tray for stabilization and maximum penetration in the soil.
Here, one can see the holes left behind by the aerating spikes.
This aerator makes slits in the ground as opposed to core plugs. Spike aerators punch holes in compacted soil, while plug aerators have hollow tines that penetrate into the compacted soil to collect plugs and remove them.
Next, Chhiring fills the spreader with seed. Our seed is from Hancock Farm & Seed Company, a 45-year old business that grows its own seed and ships directly from its Dade City, Florida facility.
Using good quality seed for hay is important for horses. It helps to provide proper fiber requirements and keeps their digestive systems healthy.
This is a 3-point spreader, which can be attached to a variety of tractors to spread seed or fertilizer. Chhiring starts by going around the field counter clockwise from the outer edge working inward. He also overlaps his passes, so he doesn’t miss any areas.
Looking closely at the ground, one can see the tiny seeds.
Hopefully the forecast is correct, and we’ll get some good rain in the coming days. Come September, we’ll be harvesting our second cut of good quality, nutritious hay for my horses.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
