Recycling and repurposing as many natural resources as possible is a big priority here at my Bedford, New York farm.
We always save whatever materials we can in case they can be used at a later time - especially wood. Last year, Mauricio Guevara, a skilled lumberer, master woodworker, and owner of New England Antique Lumber Inc., in nearby Mount Kisco, set up his portable sawmill, and made some beautiful floor boards and planks out of felled trees here at the farm. Most of the wood can be used for future building projects, but some of it is used for making stakes to support all my young, developing trees.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
All the stakes are made right here in our shop from leftover unused scraps of wood. I try not to waste anything. I am fortunate to have the room to store these natural materials until they are put to good use.
This is our Powermatic table saw. It is a rugged cabinet saw that only requires 115V of power.
Here is the blade, which can be adjusted to various heights. One can also see the space between the blade and the straight edge that guides the wood through the cutter.
Pete measures the boards and cuts them down to a manageable stake size – This board will be used to make six foot stakes.
Next, Pete uses one of our STIHL chainsaws to cut the board to size. STIHL designed and built its first electric chain saw in 1926 and 94 years later, it is still one of its best pieces of equipment. This one is run on an AP 300 S Lithium-Ion Battery, which is powerful and compatible with a wide range of other STIHL tools.
Then, the cut piece of lumber is passed through the table saw.
Pete measures the wood again to determine exactly what size each stake should be. He cut it first to two inches and then decided that was too thick.
Pete passes the piece of wood through the machine again to make it smaller.
This wood is oak, which is a heavy, strong wood. 1.5 inches was still too heavy for our stakes, so Pete decides to cut the stakes down to one by one inch square.
Table saws are excellent for cutting straight lines with a high degree of precision. Once it is set up, the machine makes the same exact cut every time.
This bright yellow push stick allows one to safely feed material through the table saw. The push stick has a comfortable pistol grip handle with an anti-slip guard and a notched end to help maintain even pressure as the wood is moved.
Many stakes are made within a few minutes.
Each one is made perfectly square.
Pete made two different sizes – six foot and five foot stakes, allowing extra for the amount of wood that would be buried into the ground.
A lot of sawdust is generated during the process – thankfully, it was not a windy day.
These stakes were cut within a half-hour. They are the perfect size. Brian takes a load of stakes to the allee of London Plane and Cotinus trees in the middle field.
These growing London Planes were left leaning to one side after Hurricane Ida, so Brian needed to stabilize them using these new stakes. He uses a digging bar to to help clear dirt, rocks and other items out of the way. Digging bars are typically five to six feet long and weigh 15 to 23 pounds and usually made entirely of cylindrical or hexagonal forged steel.
Once the hole is made, Brian hammers in the newly made stake about a foot deep.
Brian positions the stakes about a foot away at a 15-degree angle, so that there is always a bit of tension once it is tied.
We use natural jute twine for many of our projects around the farm. Jute twine is a vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is 100-percent biodegradable and pollution-free. Here, Brian holds the tree perfectly straight and then secures the stake with twine.
The knots used should be very simple. I always teach every member of the crew to twist the twine before knotting, so the tree or vine or cane is not crushed or strangled.
Each piece is tied just tight enough to keep the tree secure, but not break it.
For these trees, Brian doubled the twine to secure them and then cut off the ends.
Because these trees are in the field, they are exposed to all the winds that blow through the area. Foe extra security, a third stake – here, a tall bamboo stake, is placed closer to each tree and behind it between the two wooden stakes.
These trees are now well secured. The London Plane tree grows at a medium to high rate, with an increase of 13 to 24 inches in height per year. I am pleased they will be well supported as they develop. In a few years, this allee will be so stunning, I can’t wait.
It's dahlia season and here at my Bedford, New York farm, we have lots of gorgeous, bright, and colorful dahlia blooms indoors and out.
I hope you saw the recent dahlia photos on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48 - our first of many dahlia arrangements. This year, I designated a large space for growing dahlias right behind my vegetable greenhouse. Many of our dahlia tubers are from Swan Island Dahlias in Oregon, a family owned business and the largest and leading dahlia grower in the United States. Others are from Floret, a family farm and floral design studio in the State of Washington, and from The Flower Hat, a flower farm based in Bozeman, Montana. We'll have many colorful, spiky flowers from small to giant dinner-plate size blooming now through the first frost.
Enjoy these photos.
I often place cut flower arrangements here on my servery counter – the color combinations look so pretty in these glass vessels. When arranging, always strip off all the leaves that would be below the water line in the vase. This is true for all flower arrangements, not just dahlias. When leaves stay underwater, they decay and release bacteria that shorten the vase life of the flowers. And change the water daily so they look fresh and last longer.
This year, we grew our dahlias in a bed behind my vegetable greenhouse. This location gets great sun. Dahlias grow more blooms when they get at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight per day. And because this spot is behind this large structure, it is also protected from strong winds.
The array of flower colors, sizes, and shapes is astounding. Dahlias come in white, shades of pink, red, yellow, orange, shades of purple, and various combinations of these colors – every color but true blue. In the 19th century, a London newspaper offered a pound, or a little more than a dollar, to the first breeder to create a blue dahlia—the reward was never claimed, but there have been many attempts that are near-blue. Like many flower varieties, there is also no pure black variety—only dark red and dark purple. This one is a soft pink.
Dahlias are named after 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. He actually categorized dahlias as a vegetable because of their edible tubers. The tubers are said to taste like a mix between potatoes and radishes.
This dahlia is a special mix of white and soft lavender. The flower is upward-facing and borne on long, strong stems. The genus Dahlia is native to the high plains of Mexico. Some species can be found in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador & Costa Rica as well as parts of South America where it was introduced.
Currently, there are about 42 species of dahlia, with hybrids commonly grown as garden plants. A member of the Asteraceae family of dicotyledonous plants, some of its relatives include the sunflower, daisy, chrysanthemum, and zinnia.
Dahlias produce an abundance of wonderful flowers throughout early summer and again in late summer until the first frost. This large bloom is a beautiful creamy white with a hint of yellow in the center.
These tuberous plants have slender erect stems which are not always capable of supporting the large flowers, so they must be well-supported. We use strong metal stakes to keep them up through the season.
Dahlias are classified according to flower shape and petal arrangement. Here in New York, by the end of August, the flowers start to burst open with such beautiful blooms just as others have sadly past their prime.
This gorgeous dahlia is medium pink with a bright white center.
This is a single dahlia with just one row of petals surrounding the center disc. They range from a charming single, daisy-like flower to the popular double varieties which can range from the two-inch-pompons to 12-inch dinner plate size. They are divided into 10 groups: single, anemone, collarette, waterlily, decorative, fall, pompon, cactus, semi-cactus, and miscellaneous.
This is a cactus dahlia with its beautiful ‘spiny’ petals rolled up along more than two-thirds of their length. Dahlias are herbaceous perennials, but typically grown as an annual.
Pompon dahlias yield masses of intricate, fully double blooms measuring up to two-and-a-half inches across. This dahlia is a pretty salmon color.
Dahlias thrive in rich, well-drained soil with a pH level of 6.5 to 7.0 and slightly acidic.
The majority of dahlia species do not produce scented flowers or cultivars, but they are brightly colored to attract pollinating insects.
Dahlias are very attractive to bees and hummingbirds.
This dahlia is a soft, creamy pink with a dark yellow center.
Experiment with the varieties – dahlias look great arranged in different colors.
Or as a bunch of the same variety. The striking colors and forms look so pretty. The stems don’t have to be too long – we cut these to about a foot each and then trimmed them indoors to fit these vessels.
And when cutting, to prevent wilting, cut only in the early morning or late afternoon. And only cut them after they open to mature size – dahlias will not open after cutting. Enjoy your dahlias!
Clean-up continues today at my Bedford, New York farm after the remnants of Hurricane Ida barreled through the Northeast with furious, wind-driven rain, and flash flooding earlier this week.
It’s heartbreaking to see so many images of areas ravaged by this storm. In New York City, Ida halted train service, flooded apartments, and caused extensive travel delays. A record-breaking 3.1 inches of rain fell in Central Park within an hour. Tornado warnings were issued across parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Fortunately, my farm escaped major damage. There was extensive runoff on the carriage roads, a good number of young trees were pushed over by strong winds, and we lost several branches, but everything here can be fixed, and my outdoor grounds crew is working very hard to get things back into shape. If you were in Ida's path, I hope you and your families are safe.
Here are some photos.
Hurricane Ida whipped through the region overnight. By the next morning, all the streams at the farm were angry, full to overflowing, and several more dry stream beds were filled.
I have four miles of carriage road at the farm and many of them suffered stormwater runoff – generated from all the fast-moving rain that flowed over the roads and into the landscape – the gravel is everywhere.
After any storm, my gardeners and crew drive around the entire property to assess the damage. Here’s Ryan picking up a fallen branch in the middle of a woodland road. Branches are moved to the edge, where they can be picked up and chipped.
Here’s more of the eroded carriage road after the rains.
Here, Ryan is securing a kousa dogwood tree that was found toppled over after the storm. These young specimens are still quite fragile and need the support of bamboo uprights until it is older and more developed.
Cornus kousa is a small deciduous tree that can grow up to 40 feet tall. It is in the flowering plant family Cornaceae. Common names include kousa, kousa dogwood, Chinese dogwood, Korean dogwood, and Japanese dogwood. It is native to East Asia including Korea, China and Japan. This is a fruit of the kousa which is edible. The soft pulp is sweet with a similar flavor to a ripe persimmon but it also has hard seeds inside.
More branches are moved to the sides of the road ready for pick up at another time.
There were great puddles of water everywhere – the rain came down fast and furious. Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. Ida then churned inland, bringing catastrophic winds, heavy rainfall, and tornado watches, and life-threatening storm surge along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama before it moved north into our area bringing more torrential rains.
The combination of softened wood and high winds is so bad for fully leafed-out trees. This branch is broken and has to be completely removed.
Ryan braces the branch, so it stays still until it can be fully removed. Some are too heavy to carry and need to be cut into sections before feeding into the chipper.
Meanwhile, Brian carries another fallen branch to the side of the road. I can take fallen branches and boughs but broken and uprooted trees are so difficult to clean up and so sad to lose.
In the sycamore allee, many of my young London plane trees, Platanus × acerifolia, were left leaning, but all survived. They too have to be re-staked upright.
Many of these trees were leaning because the ground became so saturated from the rains.
Ryan digs the hole deeper and adds another stake to support the tree.
Now this tree is standing tall and straight once again – this time with two stakes.
And a doubled twine to secure them.
During strong rain storms, the water runoff sometimes washes the gravel off of this road by the azaleas and onto the grassy areas. We often place bales to help direct the rain water to the appropriate drains.
The rains were so strong that this bale came apart during the storm.
The low swales along the sides of the roads are a very good idea, as they prevent a lot of driveway erosion. A swale is a small channel that conveys water from one point to another. When planted with grasses or native vegetation, swales can be positioned to collect stormwater from driveways and other hard surfaces.
The Boxwood Allee drive suffered a lot of washout.
Chhiring adds soil and levels the gravel wherever the washout occurred.
But these are easy to fix after the storm – once fixed, it doesn’t even look as if a storm even hit this area of the allee.
Here is Pasang raking the washed out gravel back to the road where it belongs. There is still a lot of work to be done, but soon the farm will be back in good shape.
The storm left a mess in its wake, but everything at the farm can be repaired. My heart goes out to those who did not fare as well. Today is also expected to be very pleasant – mild temperatures, low humidity, and lots of sunshine. I hope those of you who suffered damage are doing okay and making headway with clean up chores.