It's tree planting time here at my Bedford, New York farm.
Every year, I try to plant as many trees as I can. I feel strongly about reforestation and giving back to the earth, so the more trees planted, the better. Trees provide habitat and food for birds and other animals, they absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gasses, and they release oxygen. My outdoor grounds crew has been working very hard to plant hundreds of trees in the woodland - most recently, a collection of catalpas, gray dogwoods, and maples.
Here are some photos.
I keep thousands of potted young trees in this area behind my stable, where they can be closely monitored and well-watered. Every year, we take stock of the inventory and decide where many of them will be planted.
These saplings, or young trees, were originally ordered as bare-root cuttings, which are plants that are removed from the earth while dormant and stored without any soil surrounding their roots. I order a selection every spring and then nurture them in containers for a couple of years until they are ready to plant in more permanent locations.
Among them – evergreens, such as these white spruce trees, Picea glauca, a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in North America.
Its needles are sharp, and stiff, and are arranged spirally on the twigs – they become pleasant smelling with age.
Recently, Ryan and the outdoor grounds crew began loading up the trees to start planting – some of these trees have grown quite tall.
This woodland area is just beyond my pumpkin patch near the carriage road to my compost piles. These catalpa trees were placed at least 20 feet apart. They prefer full sun or partial shade locations. While catalpas do best in alkaline soils, they also thrive in neutral, acidic and somewhat salty soils.
Catalpa, commonly called catalpa or catawba, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to warm, temperate, and subtropical regions of North America, the Caribbean, and East Asia. Catalpas develop a beautiful, symmetrical and rounded habit when they are given plenty of space to grow.
The leaves of the catalpa are about eight to 12 inches long and heart-shaped. They are also thick, firm, dark green on top and downy on the underside.
This is the leaf of a gray dogwood tree. Its leaves are opposite, ovate to lance shape, and taper to a pointed tip. The lateral veins are evenly spaced and tend to curve. Gray dogwood is very adaptable and excellent for naturalizing, especially in difficult sites, such as pond and stream banks.
The gray dogwood is a slow grower. It grows less than 12-inches per year, but it is also easy-to-care for and can tolerate dry soil.
Fertile flowers of the gray dogwood produce globular, ellipsoid shaped drupes, four to eight millimeters in diameter which start off green and turn white in the fall. Each flower stalk turns to a conspicuous red as the fruits form and mature.
Birch tree leaves are triangular or egg-shaped with a rounded base, pointed tips, and serrated margins.
One can also recognize birch trees by the bark. Look closely and notice the long, horizontal marks called lenticels. As it grows, the tree will develop strips of peeling bark that can be white, gray, or yellow.
As each tree is planted, it is also fed with a good quality tree fertilizer. Remember, if you eat, so should your plants and trees.
And each tree is also well staked with bamboo and jute twine. Notice how the twine is secured – 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. I like to tie the twine in a figure-eight formation. Each piece is tied just tight enough to keep the tree secure, but not break it.
Here is a grove of growing maples. Acer is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. There are more than 130 species of maple, most of which are native to Asia, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America. Most maples are deciduous woody plants, ranging from multi-stemmed shrubs to large upright trees with massive trunks.
Maple trees commonly have leaves with pointed lobes and with deep indentations between the lobes.
Up the carriage road is an area planted with evergreens. When planting these trees always select evergreens that tolerate the sunlight options in your garden: full sun, partial sun, partial shade, and full shade.
All spruce varieties are in the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae. This one is already well-established with lots of room to grow.
I can’t wait to see all of these trees flourish around my farm. I hope you can go out and enjoy some of the trees near your home, or plant a tree in your own backyard.
Time for some pruning and maintenance on the trees at my Bedford, New York farm.
As the owner of a working farm with many gardens, groves, and allees, I am constantly looking at all the plants and trees, making sure they are in perfect condition. Pruning is one of our biggest and most important tasks. Pruning is about more than just looks; proper pruning improves the health of the plants, prevents disease, and encourages better flowering. There are different pruning strategies for different times of the year, but overall the goals are the same - to control the shape, to keep bushes and trees fresh and open, and to allow for better air circulation through the center of the specimen. Yesterday, my gardeners "limbed up" the bald cypress trees - pruned back the low branches to keep them from hitting any cars on the carriage road and to allow enough light to filter down to the plants below.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Across from my winding pergola is a row of towering bald cypress, 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, but they were in need of some good pruning.
The leaves are compound and feathery, made up of many small leaflets that are thin and lance-shaped. Each leaflet is less than two inches long, alternating along either side of a central stem. They are a medium green now and turn russet brown in fall. Like trees with leaves, bald cypress trees drop their needles in the fall leaving the tree – well, bald.
The bark of the bald cypress is brown to gray and forms long scaly, fibrous ridges on the trunk. Over time, these ridges tend to peel off the trunk in strips.
Here, one can see the ribbon-like bark stripping off this bald cypress trunk.
These tall, majestic trees have seed pods that are round and about the same size as a walnut.
One of the most interesting characteristics of the bald cypress is its knees. Known by the scientific name pneumatophores, these growths are specialized root structures that grow vertically above the moist soil near the tree. It is believed that these structures aid the oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange in the roots. Looking carefully at the ground, one can see many of these unique knees.
Here’s another knee. Some protrude from the ground more than others. They are called knees because they look like a bent human knee when viewed from the side.
On one end of the grove, nestled under the canopy of foliage is my Basket House. I had this small structure built shortly after moving to my Bedford farm, so I could have a place to store my large basket collection.
Here is a view looking up through the foliage.
This carriage road by the bald cypress grove leads to my Winter House driveway. I instructed Ryan and Bryan to limb-up the trees and remove any low inner branches that could get weighed down after heavy rains and brush against passing cars. It was also important not to block any sunlight from the plants below or disturb the open and airy appearance.
For pruning the bald cypress, Brian uses this telescoping pole pruner from STIHL. It has a quiet, zero-exhaust emission, and is very lightweight. Plus, with an adjustable shaft, the telescoping pole pruner can cut branches up to 16 feet above the ground.
Brian starts by cutting the most obvious low growing branches and checks for dead, broken, and diseased branches that also need to be removed. This can be done at any time of year.
He also checks for any crisscrossing branches that need cutting.
Regular and thorough pruning gives the branches more circulation and room to grow. Here, Brian cuts the branch at the collar. It’s important to make the cut on the outside of the branch collar, so the wound can heal properly and form a callus.
Here, Ryan uses the STIHL GTA 26 garden pruner, which offers impressive high cutting performance, quiet operation, excellent ergonomics, and long battery life in a small hand tool. This mini saw fits right in the palm of one’s hand and is great for smaller jobs and tight spaces. For this branch Ryan makes two cuts to safely remove the limb without stripping any bark. The first cut should be about a third to halfway down the branch. Cutting in sections also prevents splitting and allows the large portion of the branch to fall and not tear into or damage the tree.
Then he cuts off the remaining branch by cutting back to the branch collar.
It is important to always use sharp tools whenever pruning so that the cuts are clean. Dull tools are difficult to use and could even damage the tree. A straight, clean-cut promotes quick healing of the wound and reduces stress on the specimen.
As branches are removed, they’re gathered close to the road, so they can be collected for chipping.
Ryan and Brian stop often to assess the shape of the tree and to check where more pruning is needed.
Here is a photo from 2010. One can see the bald cypress trees on the left. They are under than 20-feet tall.
Here they are in 2013 – much more full in appearance. These trees are slow growers, but they fill out very nicely.
And here are the bald cypress trees in 2015. These trees have developed so well over the years.
After pruning yesterday, these newly limbed-up bald cypress trees look so much better. Now, there is more space and no inward branches that can block airflow and sunlight from reaching healthy plants below. The bald cypress tree can survive for centuries. These trees will get taller and taller for roughly 200 years, reaching heights up to 150 feet. It is definitely worth all the effort to have well-manicured, healthy trees.
I am always so happy to have fresh, organic produce growing at the farm - everything I grow is shared with family and friends, used for video and print shoots, and saved for making my delicious daily green juice.
My outdoor vegetable garden is still producing lots of great foods, but we also use my vegetable greenhouse - a special structure inspired by four-season farming expert, Eliot Coleman. Planting is done in succession, so there is always something ready to pick. Last week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, planted new crops of cilantro, basil, arugula, dill, and parsley. Some of the seeds came from a few of our favorite sources, including Botanical Interests, Kitazawa Seed Co., Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, and Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Enjoy these photos.
We always have a large variety of seeds to grow. I am always on the lookout for different seeds when I travel, but seeds are also widely available online and at garden centers. Ryan keeps track of what seeds do well at the farm – indoors and out.
We do a lot of prep work to get the beds ready. In this greenhouse we use a compost-based potting soil mix from the Vermont Compost Company in Montpelier, Vermont. This soil is specifically developed for organic gardening called Fort Vee potting mix. Ryan uses this bed preparation rake from Johnny’s Selected Seeds to create furrows in the soil.
Hard plastic red tubes slide onto selected teeth of the rake to mark the rows. The furrows don’t have to be deep. In general, seeds should be planted at a depth of two times the width, or diameter, of the seed. A seed that’s about 1/16-of-an-inch thick should be planted an eighth-of-an-inch deep.
Here’s Ryan at one of the raised beds. Raised bed gardening allows good drainage, prevents soil compaction, and provides protection for those plants that may otherwise get trampled.
These seeds are cilantro, Coriandrum sativum, also known commonly as coriander or Chinese parsley. Coriander is actually the dried seed of cilantro. Cilantro is a popular microgreen garnish that complements meat, fish, poultry, noodle dishes and soups.
Ryan sprinkles the seeds in the furrows. These raised beds were designed for easy reach from all sides. We always plant in succession. Succession planting is a practice of seeding crops at intervals of seven to 21 days in order to maintain a consistent supply of harvestable produce throughout the season. This dramatically increases a garden’s yield, while also improving produce quality.
The seeds are very small – it’s hard to believe these tiny seeds produce such beautiful vegetables within weeks.
These are Arugula seeds. Arugula is a lesser known cruciferous vegetable that provides many of the same benefits as other vegetables of the same family. Arugula leaves, also known as rocket or roquette, are tender and bite-sized with a tangy flavor.
Basil, also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae. Basil is native to tropical regions from central Africa to Southeast Asia. It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide.
In a nearby bed – some mature basil ready for picking. Basil is a hardy herb that grows extremely well both indoors and outdoors.
What is known as dill “seed” is actually the flat, brown fruits of dill weed. Similar to caraway in flavor, dill seed is widely used in northern Europe as an ingredient in pickling seasoning and to flavor breads, cheese, meats and vegetables, especially potatoes and cabbage.
Once all the seeds are dropped into their various beds, Ryan uses the back of a tine weeding rake, also from Johnny’s Seeds, to backfill all the furrows. This model is also good for working in tight areas.
And then everything is given a thorough drink of water. In several weeks, we’ll have gorgeous, nutritious vegetables to eat, share, and enjoy.
Other vegetables already growing in this greenhouse include the Swiss chard. Swiss chard colors are so vibrant with stems of red, yellow, rose, gold, and white. Chard has very nutritious leaves making it a popular addition to healthful diets. The most common method for picking is to cut off the outer leaves about two inches above the ground while they are young, tender, and about eight to 12 inches long.
Pronounced bee-KEE-nyo, the name of this pepper from Brazil means “little beak,” and adds great flavor to many dishes. The bright one inch pods taper to a point like an inverted teardrop. The pepper has the distinctive smoky flavor like other members of this species, but also a rich fruitiness that is enhanced by sugar or sweet-and-sour marinades. It also makes the perfect garnish for barbecues and pickles. My family loves these peppers.
Do you know… sweet potatoes are actually not grown from seed? They’re grown from “slips”—sprouts grown from existing sweet potatoes! The heart-leafed vine that produces sweet potatoes requires a longer growing season – 100 to 140 days. The young shoots and leaves are also sometimes eaten as greens.
The scallions are also growing wonderfully. Growing scallions is actually easier than growing onions since they have a much shorter growth period. Varieties sown in spring can be harvested just 60 to 80 days after planting or when transplants reach about a foot tall.
In one corner of the greenhouse, we planted this Star Fruit tree, or Averrhoa carambola. I’ve had it many years, but only recently planted in this bed and it is thriving. Star Fruit is a tropical fruiting tree in the oxalis family that’s native to tropical Asia.
There are so many fruits growing. Star Fruit is juicy with a delicious tart flavor. The yellow fruit is three to four inches long with a waxy skin and five prominent ridges. Star Fruit is low in calories and low in sugar. When it’s grown in the tropics, one Star Fruit tree can provide fruit for up to three families because of its prolific fruiting habit.
In the center of the greenhouse, I have a potted ruffled fan palm, Licuala grandis. It is an unusual and gorgeous species of palm. Ruffled fan palm is native to the Vanuata Islands, located off the coast of Australia. It is a very slow growing palm which can reach up to 10 feet, but usually closer to six feet when grown in a pot. They are grown for their gorgeous pleated, or ruffled, leaves.
And here is the Passiflora, known also as the passion flower – a genus of about 550 species of flowering plants. These flowers grow on tendril-bearing vines. They can be woody or herbaceous. Flowers come in several different colors including lavender, blue, white, pink, and red.
Here is another passion flower. The striking appearance of these flowers is admired by all who visit this greenhouse. I’m fortunate to have lots of wonderful vegetables, fruits, and other plants doing so well here. How have your gardens fared this summer? Share your comments below.
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