Now is a good time to take care of some of those lawn maintenance chores.
Yesterday, my outdoor grounds crew foreman, Chhiring Sherpa, took on the task of seeding a small area adjacent to my allee of Lindens. The space is already planted with a variety of spring blooming daffodils, but the area also needed some green grass. Chhiring cleared the space of any debris, raked the soil, dropped the grass seed and organic fertilizer, and then gave it a good drink.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
In spring, the area on one side of my Linden allee is filled with gorgeous daffodil blooms, but I decided this garden bed would look even better on a bed of grass to cover any bare spots in between the daffodil varieties.
Now is a good time to seed the space while everything is dormant underground, so the area was first weed-whacked and cleared.
We use grass seed made by Scott’s. This versatile mix stays green through the year in either dense shade or full sun. You can also find some of Scott’s other products on my new e-commerce site at Martha.com.
Chhiring uses a STIHL backpack leaf blower and goes over the area once again to make sure it is completely clean. We’ve been using STIHL’s backpack blowers for years here at my farm. These blowers are powerful and fuel-efficient. The gasoline-powered engines provide enough rugged power to tackle debris while delivering much lower emissions.
I did not want any grass growing in the beds directly beneath the lindens, so Chhiring measures the space, so it can be well marked.
Chhiring uses jute twine and sod staples to indicate the section to avoid when seeding.
Chhiring pulls the jute twine along the length of the allee.
The area on the left will be seeded and the garden bed on the right will not.
Next, Chhiring uses a soft rake over the entire space to loosen the top layer of soil. This gives the grass seed direct access to the soil so it can root more easily after germinating.
To ensure no grass is seeded in the garden bed marked, Chhiring uses a piece of plywood to divide the two spaces while applying the seed.
He carefully starts dropping the grass seed on one side of the board – there is absolutely no grass touching the area behind the wood.
Scott’s wraps each seed in a unique WaterSmart® PLUS Coating that absorbs more water and provides added essential nutrients to help protect the seedlings from disease. The light blue coating also helps to see where seed has been dropped during the process.
Chhiring does this along the entire side of the bed. This is an easy way to create a straight and clean border.
Next, Chhiring fills the Scott’s hand-held broadcast spreader with more seed.
And then drops the seed in the middle of the space. This spreader has an ergonomic design and is easy to use and operate.
The next step is to rake the area again, so every part is evenly covered with seed.
Then, Chhiring applies an appropriate fertilizer. We’re using The Happy Lawn™ Fertilizer – a custom mix of never-burn ingredients like wheat flour, feather meal, and molasses, all designed to enrich the soil this time of year. It’s available on my site at Martha.com.
This granule fertilizer is safe for all grass types and completely safe around people and pets.
And finally, the area is watered. We use my trusted Gilmour oscillating sprinkler. These sprinklers are easy to control in a variety of areas – they provide thousands of square feet in water coverage and feature a tube with multiple openings that move back and forth to provide even watering. I use several around the farm for gently watering ground covering plants and lawns.
When watering new grass seed, it must watered deeply every day to get the best results.
We’re also using the Gilmour tripod sprinkler. The adjustable tripod can reach a height of 58-inches and can water everything from above. Once all the watering is done, it’s important to turn off the water at the source. Just turning off at the sprinkler puts a lot of pressure on the hoses and pipes.
This Linden allee is a favorite spot on the farm – I only wish it was longer. Right now, the leaves are this gorgeous dark green color. In autumn, they turn a beautiful shade of yellow. I’ll be sure to show you more photos as the foliage changes and when the new lawn is grown. Stay tuned.
I have so many delicious fruits growing here at my Bedford, New York farm.
Fresh fruit is one of nature's most delicious products. In midsummer, we pick boxes and boxes of raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and currants. In late August, we pick delicious peaches and apricots fresh off my trees. This week, we harvested some juicy Asian pears. And soon, all the apples will be ready. Here at Cantitoe Corners, I have an orchard around my pool filled with a variety of more than 200 different fruit trees. I also have fruits growing on espaliers and in groves - on trees I've planted and on trees that are original to the farm. I also grow tropical fruits in my greenhouses. I can't wait to harvest the next bounty of sweet and organic fruits.
Enjoy these photos.
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.
I planted several types of Asian pear, Pyrus pyrifolia, which is native to East Asia. My trees include Hosui, Niitaka, Shinko, and Shinseiko. Asian pears have a high water content and a crisp, grainy texture, which is very different from the European varieties. They are most commonly served raw and peeled. Some of these are ready for picking.
The other pears in this orchard are ‘Bartlett’, ‘Columbia’, ‘D’Amalis’, ‘Ginnybrook’, ‘McLaughlin’, ‘Nova’, ‘Patten’, ‘Seckel’, ‘Stacyville’, and ‘Washington State’.
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.
And of course, I have a large section of 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 newer apple trees include ‘Baldwin’, ‘Black Oxford’, ‘Cortland’, ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, ‘Esopus Spitzenburg’, ‘Fuji’, ‘Golden Russet’, ‘Grimes Golden’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Redfield’, ‘Roxbury Russet’, and ‘Windham Russet’.
Apple trees need well-drained soil – nothing too wet. The soil also needs to be moderately rich and retain moisture as well as air. And the best exposure for apples is a north- or east-facing slope.
Just outside the old corn crib are quince trees – three of the many I have here at the farm.
Are you familiar with quince? Quince is a fall fruit that grows like apples and pears, but with an unusually irregular shape and often gray fuzz. These fruits turn a golden yellow when ready to pick in fall.
Behind the main greenhouse, I have a grove of pawpaw trees. Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada.
These are the developing pawpaws – greenish-blackish fruit, usually three to six inches long.
The taste of a pawpaw is a mix of mango-banana-citrus all in one. It’s a big favorite for some here at the farm.
Near the pawpaw trees are two trifoliate orange trees, Citrus trifoliata or Poncirus trifoliata – a member of the family Rutaceae. Also known as the “hardy orange” or “flying dragon,”it is the most cold hardy of all citrus. It is a large, deciduous shrub that produces an unusually sour, downy fruit considered to be nearly inedible when raw but medicinally beneficial and delicious when cooked. The fruit is commonly juiced, made into marmalades, jams, jellies, or candied. Trifoliate oranges are slightly smaller than conventional oranges and taste like a blend of lemon and grapefruit. But watch out when picking – the thorns are long, thick, and very sharp.
Star fruit, also known as carambola, is the fruit of the Averrhoa carambola tree. Ripe star fruit is fleshy, crunchy, and juicy and has a sweet and slightly tart taste. When sliced horizontally, the fruit resembles a star, which is why it is named “star fruit”. This tree is planted in my vegetable greenhouse and doing so excellently.
These figs are still green, but they are growing nicely. Figs, Ficus carica, are members of the mulberry family and are indigenous to Asiatic Turkey, northern India, and warm Mediterranean climates, where they thrive in full sun. We planted five fig trees in my vegetable greenhouse earlier this summer.
The fig tree has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant. Most fig tree leaves are bright green, large, singular, and well-lobed.
Outside my stable in front of the peafowl and pigeon pens, I have this espalier of pear trees. Espalier refers to an ancient technique, resulting in trees that grow flat, either against a wall, or along a wire-strung framework. Many kinds of trees respond beautifully to the espalier treatment, but fruit trees, like apple and pear, were some of the earliest examples. And, because necessary sunlight reaches every piece of fruit that these trees bear, espalier pruning remains standard procedure at commercial orchards in France.
Last year, we planted six ‘Shinseiki’ and four ‘Nijisseiki’ pear trees. ‘Shinseiki’ Asian pear means “new century” and was developed from two of the best Asian pears of the 1940s. The ‘Shinseiki’ Asian pear is round, medium to large, yellow smooth-skinned fruit with little or no russet. It has crisp, creamy white flesh, and a mild, sweet flavor. The ‘Nijisseiki’ pear, or the 20th Century Asian pear as it is often called, is incredibly delicious, easy to grow, and smells just like a pear, but, like an apple, the outside of the fruit is crisp, firm, and round.
And look at all the apples in the dwarf espalier behind my long carport – so many apples. I will be making lots of fresh apple cider this year.
More apples hang from the branches of the Malus ‘Gravenstein’ espalier apple trees. I love this crisp and juicy apple, an antique variety, which is wonderful to eat and great for cooking and baking.
There is always something growing here at my working farm. I am so very proud of how it has developed over the years.
Lots of late summer gardening chores are getting done around my Bedford, New York farm.
Supporting a working farm is a huge responsibility and a tremendous amount of work. In order for it to thrive, animals and gardens need constant tender loving care. My gardeners and outdoor grounds crew cover lots of projects - weeding the garden beds, pruning the trees, and grooming the many boxwood shrubs. Yesterday, they tackled the boxwood in the garden outside my Green Parlor - in gardening, so much of it is in the details.
Enjoy these photos.
I love boxwood, Buxus, and have hundreds of these bold green shrubs. They’ve grown quite a bit this summer. I take very special care of these specimens and make sure they are pruned and groomed regularly.
At least once a year, we groom and prune the boxwood and barberry on my Winter House Terraces. This is mostly done with hand shears to give them a more clean and manicured appearance. Phurba starts from the top of the shrub and works his way down.
These are Okatsune 30-inch long Hedge Shears. Okatsune shears are light and precise, and come in a range of sizes.
Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The leaves on boxwood branches are arranged opposite from each other, making pairs. This is ‘Winter Gem’ – one of the hardiest of the small-leaved boxwoods. The rich green foliage can acquire a golden bronze hue in cold winter zones, but is one of the first to become green again in spring.
Buxus ‘Green Velvet’ or Green Velvet Boxwood is a hybrid boxwood cultivar. It is a broad, compact shrub that grows to three to four feet tall and three to four feet wide.
Brian tackles the boxwood on another side of the terrace. This chore is time-consuming and takes most of the day to complete.
Here, Phurba is using our STIHL HSA 25 Battery-Powered Garden Shear. It’s lightweight with a rubberized handle for user comfort and a secure grip. It comes with its own roll-up case to store all its accessories. The hedge shear attachment with double-sided cutting blades cut both directions. It’s one of our favorite tools – it’s very light and handy.
This is the striking golden barberry, Berberis thunbergii – a deciduous shrub that is compact, adaptable, very hardy and shows off golden-yellow foliage year-round. The barberry grows very well here and also needs trimming.
Some of the smaller plants around this terrace include lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis – an old-fashioned herbaceous perennial that is fairly low-maintenance and blends well with other specimens.
Euphorbia is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the spurge family. Euphorbias are valued for their whorled leaves, with colors ranging from bluish-green to variegated green colors all the way to dark bronze-purple. Euphorbias ooze a white toxic sap when cut or broken, so it is important to wear gloves and eye protection whenever working with Euphorbia.
The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees. It prefers a minimum of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The ginkgo has a cone-like shape when young, and becomes irregularly rounded as it ages.
The leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three-inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three-inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze. Ginkgo leaves grow and deepen color in summer, then turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.
Many of you will recognize this – it’s pachysandra. Pachysandra is a favorite ground cover in hard-to-plant areas such as under trees, or in shady areas.
On the left is a purple columnar beech tree, Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck Purple’ – the same variety as those surrounding my pool. On the right is a Slender Silhouette Sweetgum Tree, or a columnar sweetgum. Similar to other Sweetgum varieties, the Slender Silhouette reaches a towering mature height of nearly 60 feet, but only gets about six feet wide.
The sweetgum’s star-like leaf has five to seven lobes or points and turns from green in summer to yellow or purple in autumn.
Behind the Green Room Terrace is a weeping hornbeam, Carpinus betulus ‘pendula’ – a deciduous specimen with a tight, dense growth pattern.
These are the hornbeam’s drooping clusters of sac-like, seed-bearing pods. Many hang from the hornbeam this time of year.
By the afternoon, the entire space looks markedly different. Here is a row of mature boxwood after trimming – they look so much better.
I love the grouped effect of the boxwood, especially when they are so lush and green.
One of the most important reasons to prune is to shape up boxwood and provide a cleaner more defined appearance. These boxwood shrubs look great.
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