Here at my Bedford, New York farm, there are a lot of organizing projects underway - winter is a great time to get these indoor jobs done. Over the last couple of weeks, my housekeepers and I have been busy cleaning and organizing the basements in both the Tenant House and the Summer House, where I store lots of decorations, files, baskets, home supplies, and other items. For this clean-up, the shelves were emptied and wiped-down, old pieces were discarded or set aside for future sale, like-items were grouped together, and finally, everything was placed in appropriately labeled containers where they could be found easily and quickly. It's a tedious chore, but it’s always rewarding to see the end result.
Enjoy these photos. In my next blog, I’ll share more tips and some of the images from my new book.
I am so excited about my latest publication, “Martha Stewart’s Organizing” – it is the ultimate guide to getting your life in order, with hundreds of practical ideas, projects, and tips for putting everything in its proper place.
This is my daughter’s Tenant House basement laundry in the middle of a good cleaning and organizing. This basement is one of my favorites. It is fully tiled in this area and there is ample room for storage and utility space for cleaning supplies, a washer-dryer, and an ironing mangle.
I always store as much as possible in protective bins – these keep everything dry and free of dust. Bins are easy to find in a variety of sizes and styles at any home supply store or online.
All cleaning supplies should be stored together in one place, so they are easy to find and easy to access. I like rolling laundry carts that can be moved from one room to the next. For cleaning wood furniture, I use Christophe Fourny’s furniture wax. All his products are so great for cleaning, restoring and protecting wood pieces.
These are commercial grade baker’s flour bins. They are great for storing so many things. I use several stainless steel flour bins in my main greenhouse head house for keeping soil mixes. These durable plastic bins are great for keeping laundry or towels.
I use them for storing all my pool towels – here, they are kept clean and ready for the warm season.
I have long used these metal wire shelving units. They are durable and easy to install anywhere. Enma and Carlos adjust the shelving to accommodate a collection of filing containers along one wall of this basement.
Bins like these are made specifically for storing files in file folders – they are compact and very durable.
They fit perfectly on the shelves with enough space for accessing needed documents without having to pull the entire bin out.
I have a spare refrigerator in the basement of the Tenant House. It’s always a good idea to go through any fridge regularly. Here, Sanu emptied the freezer bins and wiped the drawers with a damp cloth.
Then she places all the items back – these containers are filled with nuts. To preserve the quality of nuts, always keep them away from onions and other high-odor foods, so they don’t absorb any of the smells. Store shelled or unshelled nuts in the freezer for a year or even more.
Technically, foods can keep indefinitely when frozen; however, freezer burn may affect its taste.
Sanu also checks all the frozen fruits – wipes down the packages and returns them to the freezer. These berries are from my garden and can be used to make jams and jellies at a later date.
Remember these bears? I display them around the holidays, where my grandchildren can enjoy them. They are stored high off the floor during the off-season to keep them protected. Always keep everything elevated in a basement – just in case of water seepage.
After everything is cleaned and organized, the floor is mopped and dried.
In the Summer House, I store a lot of area rugs. These also needed a bit of organizing.
Each one is unrolled and vacuumed using the bare floor setting. Most of these rugs are antique and purchased from estate sales or antique stores.
Then, each one is measured and photographed.
Next, the rug is carefully rolled up.
And then taped together using masking tape. The measurements are written on a tag and taped to one end for easy viewing.
It was also a good time to organize all the holiday ornaments that were just used. I like them organized by color, type, and size. Here are gold ornaments placed carefully in a bin with bubble wrap in between each layer.
Another bin holds tinsel – old tinsel from Germany.
And these bins contain decorative branches and garlands. Every bin is labeled and placed in a section of like-colors. I have collected so many decorations over the years, it is important to keep them well-organized in one space.
Once the bins are properly filled, they are placed on the shelf – clear bins allow one to see the contents without opening each container.
There is still quite a bit of organizing to do, but it’s great to have everything in its place. What are you organizing this new year? Share your comments with me in the section below. Tomorrow – more organizing ideas and inspirations from my new book, “Martha Stewart’s Organizing: The Manual for Bringing Order to Your Life, Home & Routines.” I hope you have your copy!
If you grow these wonderful fruit trees, the best time to prune them is now - in winter - or in very early spring before any new growth begins. Pruning not only helps to develop proper shape and form, but also encourages new growth, promotes high fruit yield, and maintains good tree health. At my Bedford, New York farm, I have many, many apple trees that are pruned twice every year. My arborists at SavATree visit each winter specifically to prune the larger fruit trees, while my outdoor grounds crew helps to tackle the smaller ones. And, every summer we see the wonderful fruits of all their labor.
Enjoy these photos.
I have many, many apple trees at the farm, and a good number of them are at least 50-years old, so they were already here when I purchased the property. This old apple tree is one in a stand of “ancient apples” that still produces abundant fruits each season.
Our friends from SavATree have been caring for my trees for many years. Danny Broglino is a 30-year veteran of SavATree. He has a degree in forestry and is also a certified arborist and pruning expert. Danny always wears proper eye protection whenever working. He also uses a hard hat, and gloves for maximum protection.
Danny explains the two main goals of pruning trees. On young trees, pruning encourages a strong, solid framework.
And on mature trees like these, they usually already have their shape determined, so it’s important to maintain their shape and size. Traditionally, apple trees were always encouraged to stay shorter, so apples were easier to reach.
I prefer hand tools, such as loppers and pole saws – manual tools that will give my trees a more natural appearance and shape.
This tool is a pole saw. It attaches to a telescoping pole and is used to prune branches at least an inch thick.
This is a pole pruner, or lopper, attachment, and a telescoping pole – it’s used to cut branches in high, hard to reach areas that are about an inch to an inch and half thick.
After all the branches are cut, they are gathered, neatly piled and then processed through a wood chipper to make mulch.
Danny cuts branches that are rubbing or crisscrossing each other, preventing healthy new growth.
Once a tree is pruned, Danny gives the finished tree a last glance to make sure nothing was missed. The end goal is to encourage good fruit production.
Here is a wheelbarrow full of more branches pruned from my espalier of dwarf apples behind my long carport. These branches will also be chipped and reused in the garden later.
Chhewang has become an excellent pruner and oversees a lot of the smaller tree pruning projects at the farm.
I asked Chhewang to cut them so they follow the true growth of espaliered trees. An espalier is a fruit tree whose branches are trained to grow flat against a wall, supported on a lattice or like these on a framework of wires. Chhewang eliminates competing suckers and unproductive wood.
Smaller twigs are snipped off with regular secateurs. Each member of my outdoor grounds crew has a pair.
The new growth should be pruned fairly flush to the branch from which it grew.
The idea is to leave slight stubs. By removing any more, the remaining branch has too much of an opening for disease to enter.
Dead branches, or those without any signs of new growth, are also cut, so the energy is directed to the branches with fruiting buds.
Here’s an old apple that remained on the branch. We had a very productive apple season this year.
Here, Chhewang uses a pruning hand saw for lower branches that are tougher to cut with regular hand pruners.
The espalier took a couple of days to complete, but it looks great.
Across the carriage road is 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. These, too, need a good pruning.
Chhewang only needs to do light pruning to these trees – they already have a wonderful espalier shape. They are also very healthy – they’ve grown quite a bit since the last pruning only six months ago.
On healthy trees, about a third of the growth can be pruned. Spur branches where the apple tree flowers and sets fruit are the most preferred.
After a few hours, these trees are also all pruned and cleaned up for the season.
I am looking forward to many lustrous green trees heavy with rosy red fruit come autumn. What trees are you pruning? Share your comments with me in the section below.
Many pruning chores are underway at my Bedford, New York farm.
Here in the Northeast, the winter weather has been pretty mild - daytime temperatures have been in the 50s, and in some places even 60s. My outdoor grounds crew has been taking advantage of the warmer conditions and crossing off lots of tasks from our list, including blowing late-season leaves, picking up piles of branches in the woodlands in preparation for chipping, and pruning the long row of Osage orange trees along the fence of one of my horse paddocks. The Osage orange, Macular pomifera, is actually not an orange at all and is more commonly known as a hedge apple, bow wood, or bodark. The fruit is wrinkly and bumpy in appearance, and considered inedible because of the texture and taste, but they're very interesting and fun to grow.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Along one side of my North Maple Paddock by the run-in shed, I have a row of Osage orange trees. Despite the name, it is actually a member of the fig family.
These trees must be pruned regularly to keep them in bounds. It is a fast grower – the shoots of a single year can grow up to three to six feet long. Here is Chhewang pruning one of the taller specimens.
Chhewang is quite a skilled pruner and oversees the pruning of all our smaller trees on the farm. In discussing the pruning for these trees, I instructed him not to cut too much off the top, so they continue to grow nice and tall.
The branches of the Osage are armed with stout, straight spines. Before the invention of barbed wire in the 1880s, hedges were constructed by planting young Osage orange trees closely together.
The trees are small to medium-sized from 36 to 65 feet tall with bark that is deeply furrowed.
This is how the Osage orange trees look when all leafed out.
We planted about 300-saplings several years ago – they have all doubled and tripled in size since first planting them.
The leaves are three to five inches long and about three inches wide. They are thick, firm, dark green and pale green. In autumn, the leaves turn bright yellow.
The Osage orange produces a large, warty, inedible fruit that has a distinctive orange aroma.
It is actually a dense cluster of hundreds of small fruits – many say it resembles the many lobes of a brain.
Here is an Osage orange cut in half showing the seeds inside. When mature, the Osage orange fruit is filled with a sticky latex sap, which has been found to repel insects.
Not only will they deter the pesky insects that sneak into the room, but my guests love learning about these interesting fruits.
Because of the thorny branches, it is important to wear protective glasses, long sleeves, and thick gloves when working with these trees.
To reach some branches, Chhewang needs to use these longer pruners.
Here, one can see which half has been pruned and which half has not.
Chhewang prunes out competing leaders, retaining only one strong upright with evenly-spaced branches.
He also cuts out dead, damaged or diseases branches like this one.
One of the tools Chhewang likes to use is my Martha Stewart long-handled tree pruner from one of my past gardening collections – these trusted tools are long-lasting, durable and cut taller branches that are more difficult to reach, especially because of the sharp thorns.
Here is a pile of branches pruned from the trees. These will go through the chipper and get used later, as mulch.
The Osage orange tree is native to North America. It is said that the Osage Indians made hunting bows from the beautiful hardwood of this tree.
I hope these trees produce a good amount of fruits this autumn. What do you find most interesting about these Osage orange trees? Share your comments in the section below.
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