Early July Around the Farm
I hope you all had a pleasant Fourth of July holiday. I had a fun and restful time at my home in East Hampton. I returned from Turkey last Wednesday afternoon. The next day, Thursday, I was busy preparing for my new television season, which we begin taping this week. On Friday, I spent the entire day with Chef Pierre, preparing some final menus for my upcoming entertaining book. It’s been a long time in the works and I cannot wait for it to be in print. It’s going to be a really beautiful volume. In between all that, there is always time to tour around the farm.
- I asked Shaun to pick me very thin stalks of rhubarb for a special dessert for the new entertaining book photo shoot.
- The vegetable garden is strong and healthy.
- This curly leaf is kale – Winterbor
- This is an heirloom variety called True Black Brandywine.
- Thankfully, the tomatoes are growing beautifully this year.
- The cabbages are forming nice heads.
- These are stalks of Brussels sprouts – Bubbles.
- A row of garlic
- The eggplant patch
- This white variety is eggplant – Casper.
- The edible pea pods are still growing like crazy.
- A thick row of Swiss Chard – Ruby Red
- The flowers of garlic – Chrysalis Purple
- Recently planted rows of radish – French Breakfast, lettuce – Merlot Batavian, radish – Early Scarlet Globe, and celeriac – Boule de Marbre
- He also picked an assortment of fragrant herbs – thyme, sage, basil, and tarragon.
- Meanwhile, Pierre was cooking feverishly in the kitchen, creating beautiful menus for the new book.
- Gyurme mowing the lawn
- Rufus, Clive, and Billy are enjoying the cool and clear day.
- This is a seed head of a tree peony.
- Large, showy, upright flower clusters produce fruits with husks that have thick, knobby spines. Usually a single, rounded, shiny brown seed is produced in each fruit.
- These are the flowers of an Ohio buckeye.
- Purba and Gelbu have just done the weekly cleaning out of the hen houses. The used wood shavings are taken to the compost area.
- New wood shavings have been put down.
- Three very happy hens busy at work.
- These two hens look quite cozy.
- Eggs just don’t come any fresher.
- Gorgeous trumpet lilies in the cutting garden
- Stunning pink and white trumpet lilies
- Clusters of magenta flox
- The showy flower heads of rudbeckia
- And the stunning blooms of echinacea
- Fragrant lavender – look closely – honey bees galore
- A clear blue hydrandea
- It’s also a good year for hydrangeas.
- The hydrangeas are growing next to my ‘stone yard.’ All the stone used on the property is stored here – marble, granite, slate, etc.
- These are the granite posts used for all of my pergolas.
- Wooden stakes neatly stacked
- A view of the cutting garden and the chicken coops beyond
- 180-degrees in the other direction
- A carriage road leading into the woods
- Hundreds of little fish are caught in this standing water.
- With very little rain lately, the streams are very dry.
- Wind in the willows – I wish you could hear how great it sounds.
- Wild raspberries are ripening in the woods – good food for birds and other small animals.
- Two rows of edible grapes growing – call it Martha’s Vineyard!
- We’ve added a fourth bee hive and all looks good.
- Lots of honey bee activity
- Because of the lack of rain, the sprinklers are being used all around the farm.
- Between myriad other chores, Shaun prunes back the lower branches of a maple tree.
- I’m concerned that the boxwood allee gets plenty of water so it doesn’t turn brown.
- Another dried stream bed
- I’m impressed with how quickly this line of metasequoias is growing.
- Hmmm…an animal bone. Deer? Coyote?
- Sweet Pepper – Yankee Bell
- And eggplant – Diamond
- My large Asiatic lily garden
- The blooms are just beginning to open.
- The apple espalier with ripening fruit
- Not too much more to go!
- The gravenstein espalier trees also look great!
- Photographer – Frédéric Lagrange – was busy photographing each plate.
- Frédéric is an excellent fashion, travel, portrait, and lifestyle photographer. http://www.fredericlagrange.com/
- One of his well-used cameras that he takes on his world travels.
- She’s getting a summer wardrobe ready because we start taping next week for my new television show.
- In the basement, Annie, my wardrobe stylist, is steaming a blouse.