Here at my Bedford, New York farm, I always encourage my crew to "use the right tools for the right jobs." Among our favorites are the tractors and mowers from Kubota, a leading manufacturer of farming machinery, hay tools and spreaders, and other turf products.
If you follow my blog regularly, I am sure you've seen our Kubota equipment used all over the property - to mow the pastures and fields, pull the hay wagons and aerators, transport compost and mulch, and many, many other chores. I’ve been using Kubota products for years and love how easy they are to maneuver. These machines are dependable, efficient, and great additions to my working farm. #KubotaUSA #KubotaCanada #KubotaTractor #Loan #LandPrideDoesThat
Here are some photos, enjoy.
I always enjoy doing work around the farm – it provides good exercise and allows me to spend quality time outdoors in the fresh air. Here I am on our new Kubota M4-071 tractor – a vehicle that is used every day here at the farm to do a multitude of tasks.
I am very fortunate to have two tractors – the M4-071 and the M62. Both of them have front loaders, and one of them is equipped with a backhoe.
The bucket attachment is used for so many things – from transporting mulch and compost to carrying heavy potted plants to delivering heavy stone.
Many of our pieces are delivered from Kubota through Marshall Machinery, Inc. an equipment distributor here in the New York.
This is our Kubota M62 Tractor Loader Backhoe. This is essential for planting all our large trees. We’ve been using it quite a bit, especially in the maze. It has a 63 horsepower engine, a front loader with a lift capacity of 3,960 pounds, and a powerful Kubota backhoe with 169.8 inch digging depth.
Here’s Chhiring extending the tractor’s stabilizing feet in our maze to keep it well balanced and safe.
Chhiring controls the backhoe from the safety of the tractor’s cab. He can turn and sit facing either direction to maneuver the backhoe or the loader.
And here’s the backhoe lifting some of the soil from the trench where our new privets were planted.
After the field is aerated, Chhiring switches the attachment for our 3-point spreader to drop the grass seed in one of my paddocks.
On another day, Chhiring uses the M4-071 tractor to mow and condition the hayfields, so the hay can be cut for my horses.
Then the same tractor is used to bale the hay a few days later. Here it is pulling the baler and the hay wagon.
The tractor pulls it around and around the field. This year, we filled the wagon multiple times and had more than 2600 bales from our first cut – the most we’ve ever had!
Pete attaches our Land Pride PR1690 Power Rake to the back of our tractor earlier this week. This piece of equipment has a 90-inch rake. We use it to rake and grade the carriage roads, but it is also capable of windrowing soil, rocks, and debris in a field.
Kubota also makes excellent mowers. Here’s our Zero-Turn ZD1211 mower. Its ergonomic design and high-back seat make it so comfortable to drive – and look at all the front legroom.
With all my horse pastures and fields, this mower really covers a lot of ground quickly and efficiently. The powerful engine delivers 25-horsepower. It’s also equipped with a rugged transmission for the wheels and mower deck.
This is my outdoor grounds crew foreman, Chhiring, on our Kubota SZ22 Stand On Mower. He’s heading into my new vegetable garden to mow in between the raised beds.
This machine has a smaller frame and can maneuver around the wooden garden beds with ease. We actually designed this garden with the mower in mind, so we were sure to space the beds properly for mowing.
But the stand on mower can also do open areas. Here’s Chhiring again – this time on his way to mow my “soccer field” party lawn, where my grandson, Truman, can often be found playing whenever he visits.
And here is the lawn after a fresh mowing. When mowing, remember it’s always best to do when the grass is dry. And during summer, cut it a bit higher. Having the “right tools for the right jobs” is definitely important and definitely a very “good thing.”
No plants give sweeter returns than fruit trees. And this year, I have so many delicious fruits growing here at my Bedford, New York farm.
Fresh fruit is one of nature's most delicious products. This summer, we've already picked boxes and boxes of raspberries, blueberries, and currants, but all the others - the peaches, apples, pears, medlars, etc., are developing so nicely. I have an orchard around my pool filled with more than 200 different fruit trees. Most of the fruits aren't ready to pick just yet, but it won't be long before we start harvesting our first of many bounties.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. I wanted it filled with a variety of apple trees, plum trees, cherry trees, peach, pear, and quince trees. Many were bare-root cuttings when they arrived and now they’re beautiful mature specimens.
This time every year, everyone around the farm eagerly awaits the first fruits. Look closely – these trees are filled with peaches.
Last week, the peaches were just starting to turn pink. They’re still hard, but they all look so wonderful this season.
Underripe peaches will still have a slight green undertone, but we’ve had a lot of heat in the last week or so, which helps to mature the fruits. Additionally, those peaches higher in the tree, which are exposed to more sunlight, will also ripen sooner.
And this week – look how pink they are! If the peach is firm to the touch, it’s not ready. It’s ripe when there is some “give” as it is gently squeezed. These need a few more days. Color is another great indicator of maturity. Peaches are ripe when the ground color of the fruit changes from green to completely yellow.
And then what a bounty we will have. Some of the peach varieties in this orchard include ‘Garnet Beauty’, ‘Lars Anderson’, ‘Polly’, ‘Red Haven’, and ‘Reliance’.
Peach trees thrive in an area where they can soak up the sunshine throughout the day. Growing peach trees are self-fruiting, which means the pollen from the same flower or variety can pollinate the tree and produce fruit, so you only have to plant one. I have more than 15-peach trees in this orchard.
On this tree, we have nectarines. Both peaches and nectarines are tree ripened. The tastiest nectarines will have “sugar spots,” tiny pale speckles that indicate sweetness.
In another row are the Asian pears – so many, many pears this year. I planted many types of Asian pear, Pyrus pyrifolia, which is native to East Asia. These trees include Hosui, Niitaka, Shinko, and Shinseiko.
Asian pears are usually smaller than regular pears and have a sweeter flavor. Asian pears are also a bit more crisp.
Some of the other pears in the orchard are Bartlett, Columbia, D’Amalis, Ginnybrook, McLaughlin, Nova, Patten, Seckel, Stacyville, and Washington State.
A medium pear is a good source of vitamin C, potassium, vitamin K, copper, magnesium, and B vitamins. And pears are an excellent source of fiber.
It’s hard to resist picking any of the pears, but summer pears won’t be mature until mid-August to late-September. And the season lasts about six weeks.
All the pear trees are filled with fruit. Some of our fruit trees are staked for added support.
And of course, I have a section of delicious apples. I already grow hundreds of apple trees here at the farm – some that were here when I acquired the property and others I planted soon after moving here. These orchard apple trees include Baldwin, Black Oxford, Cortland, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Esopus Spitzenburg, Fuji, Golden Russet, Grimes Golden, Honeycrisp, Liberty, Redfield, Roxbury Russet, Windham Russet, and more.
As with most fruit, apple trees produce best when grown in full sun, which means six or more hours of direct summer sunlight daily.
We almost always have a good amount of apples during apple season which is late-August to November. My granddaughter, Jude, loves to come up to the farm to make apple cider in the fall.
These are the fruits of the medlar, Mespilus germanica – a small deciduous tree and member of the rose family. These fruits are not ready yet – we’ll pick them in late October or early November.
The fruit is about one to two inches in diameter, and ranges in color from rosy rust to dusty brown. Medlars are native to Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe. The fruits have to be eaten when almost rotten in a process called “bletting”. And, because of this, they either have to be eaten right off the tree or picked early and put aside for a few weeks to blet. The medlar is very pulpy and very sweet. Its taste is similar to an overripe date with a flavor similar to toffee apples or apple butter.
Fruit trees need a good amount of room to mature. When planting, be sure to space them at least 15-feet apart. I am very fortunate to have such an expansive paddock space to grow all these trees. In another section, I have quince, apricots as well as sweet and sour cherries. I’ll share more photos when we harvest our first stone fruits – very soon.
For anyone passionate about gardening, it's always so rewarding to plant new specimens and watch them flourish.
Recently, I received a large assortment of beautiful plants grown by Monrovia, a wholesale plant nursery specializing in well-nurtured shrubs, perennials, annuals, ferns, grasses, and conifers with several nursery locations across the country. I decided a selection of hostas, heucheras, and lady's mantles would look perfect in the new expanded beds behind my Tenant House and around my Basket House. Last week, my gardeners Ryan McCallister and Brian O'Kelly, placed them and planted them before the heavy rains.
Enjoy these photos.
As a serious and passionate gardener, I am always looking for ways to add more beauty and texture to all my garden beds. I was so excited when these plants arrived from Monrovia. Ryan and I already had many ideas about where to place them.
Here’s Brian loading some of the potted plants onto the pick up truck to go to their new locations.
This selection includes a variety of hosta plants. Hostas, with a palette of so many different colors, textures, and sizes have tremendous landscape value and offer great interest to the garden. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
Here, near my Basket House, we also decided to plant heuchera – this one is dark burgundy. Heuchera is a genus of largely evergreen perennial plants in the family Saxifragaceae, all native to North America. Common names include alumroot and coral bells.
And here is a collection of Lady’s Mantle. Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis, is an herbaceous perennial. The plant is fairly low-maintenance, blends well with other spring bloomers, and does well as a ground cover. It will be planted close to the footpath.
Whenever we get new specimens, Ryan positions the plants first before any holes are dug. When choosing locations for plants, always take into consideration the height and spread of the plant when it is mature, and give it ample room to grow in the garden bed.
This area in front of my Basket House will look so beautiful with hostas and heucheras.
All the areas to be planted are given a good sprinkling of fertilizer. Here we used an all-purpose formula with a good balance of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium.
Brian starts by digging the hole at least twice the size of the plant’s root ball.
Since this day was so warm and humid, Brian decided to dig all the holes first in the morning and then plant. Here is one of many, many holes.
After each hole was dug, Brian placed the potted plant into the hole – it’s a good way to keep track of what goes where when planting a large amount.
This is a ‘Northern Exposure Silver’ Heuchera. The burgundy foliage becomes heavily frosted with silver, forming a dense mound. This plant also features sprays of small pink flowers on red stems that rise above the foliage from spring through summer.
Monrovia’s ‘Sirens Song™ Orange Delight’ Heuchera has lively peach and orange tones on large leaves. The plant grows into a full mound that is exceptionally heat tolerant. Dainty flowers appear on spikes above the foliage in spring.
Lady’s Mantle is a grayish green large circular, scallop-edged leaves. In late spring and early summer, the plant produces small delicate chartreuse blooms.
This garden already has several smoke bushes, so we added a few more. This is Cotinus coggygria ‘Lilla’ – a compact, upright, bushy, deciduous shrub with oval, maroon leaves turning red and orange in autumn, and feathery panicles of pink flowers in summer.
Another heuchera is this ‘Northern Exposure™ Sienna.’ It is long lived, hardy, and rust resistant and adds a pop of bright color to the shade garden. New leaves emerge green, then transform in summer to burnt-orange with yellow edges. Bright pink flowers and stems appear above the compact foliage in spring.
And this is a ‘T-Rex’ hosta. Right now, the leaves are young and small, but they will grow to gigantic green leaves measuring 18-inches long and 14-inches wide with a matte finish and a slightly wavy texture.
Before planting, Brian uses his hands to scarify the roots of every specimen. Scarifying stimulates root growth. Essentially, he teases small portions of the root ball to loosen the roots a bit and create some beneficial injuries. This helps the plant become established more quickly in its new environment.
Next, Brian places it into the hole and backfills, tamping down gently to ensure good contact between the plant and the surrounding soil.
Many of the plants in this area are under the dappled shade of these majestic bald cypress trees, Taxodium distichum – a deciduous conifer. Though it’s native to swampy areas, the bald cypress is also able to withstand dry, sunny weather and is hardy in USDA climate zones 5 through 10. These trees do so well here at the farm.
After a few hours, all the plants are in the ground. Here is one area all planted. I know these plants will thrive here. My Tenant House can be seen in the distance. This house is where my daughter and grandchildren stay when they visit. The surrounding beds are already filled with many beautiful shade-loving plants, trees, and shrubs.
All hostas need some sunlight. Choose them wisely. Blue, green, and variegated hostas will do better in slightly deeper shade, while yellow and gold ones need more light to bring out their bold colors.
And here is another area, near the new footpath we created. The combination of burgundy and green will look stunning. I can’t wait to see these plants grow and fill in the spaces. The dark plants are ‘Northern Exposure Red’ Heuchera – bold burgundy-red rounded leaves with fluted edges that form a tidy, dense mound with sprays of small greenish-yellow flowers.
And here is the area in front of my Basket House. I am glad to use more of the space for plantings instead of grass, which will save on mowing. I will be sure to share more photos of these areas as the plants grow.
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