Martha Stewart, 83: ‘I’m Especially Proud of What I Do With the Things That I Grow’

Is there anything you grow every year in your garden without fail?

Asparagus, artichokes, carrots. All the herbs. All the tomatoes. All the eggplants. All the cabbages. All the cauliflowers. I grow all the berries. I have a couple of hundred fruit trees. I grow my own hay for my horses! I try to feed everybody on the farm.

You’ve written many garden books over the years. Is there anything you would go back in time and tell yourself — or tell a new gardener?

You’re going to make mistakes. Try to correct the mistakes as quickly as you can, and plant strong varieties, plant bigger plants than you think you have to. All those things should get you a head start on a good vegetable garden. Know what you’re growing and what it takes.

Are there any mistakes that you see even really advanced gardeners making?

Oh, overcrowding. That’s one thing they do. And planting too much of one thing, then regretting it. You could have planted four things in that same space and gotten more variety than planting one thing, like one kind of cabbage, and having a lot of them go into waste because you can’t possibly use all that cabbage.

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What about garden pests? Any advice on keeping them away?

I’ve always been an organic gardener. I may have used some various sprays on roses or maybe on grass, but I’ve never used pesticides in anything that’s food-related. I think the cleaner you keep your garden and the more enriched you keep the soil, the fewer pests you’re going to have. It’s really worked for me.

You write in the book that you’ve been inspired by many of the gardens you’ve visited around the world. Is there any one in particular that influenced your approach?

Early on, I visited a place called Hidcote Manor in England, in the Cotswolds. The gardens were so orderly, and broken into separate beds with paths in between. It was just such a beautiful place, so well cared for and so well conceived — a flower garden to be blooming all during the long growing season — that I tried very hard to emulate some of those features in my own garden.

Do you have any advice for aging or older gardeners who want to keep doing this for as long as possible?

Oh, forever and ever! It is very labor-intensive work to make a garden. If you can get yourself a helper that you can trust, that is very beneficial. But if you do it yourself, you just have to dole out the tasks over a period of months, knowing what has to be done and when. It depends on the type of garden that you’re planning if you need other help or not.

That must be especially important for larger gardens like yours.

I have a big space — 150 acres in Bedford [New York] — that I garden. That’s a lot of territory. I need help! And I admit I have help. I have always had a big garden, much bigger than one person could ever take care of. I’m used to finding part-time help or building a staff. I now have a staff of several gardeners that are very, very important to the maintenance of my gardens. A garden just doesn’t appear and flourish. You have to take care of it. That’s what we do. We work really hard at all these projects and then harvest from there. Everything, to me, is about progress and growing.

“When I first bought my farm in Bedford, I rebuilt a new stone wall that goes along the perimeter and decided to plant daffodils on both sides,” Martha Stewart says of the property that she bought in 2000. "Now we've planted closes to 60,000 bulbs."

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Has the practice of gardening taught you or inspired you in another area of your life or your career?

The main thing gardening has done for me is teach me patience. There is a time frame in which things grow, from planting the seed to harvesting the fruit. You can try to raise the temperature, you can add additional light, but you cannot make a tomato grow any faster than it’s going to grow. You just can’t!

During a Martha Knows Best episode in 2020, you and Snoop Dogg discussed how to grow herbs in planting pots. Have you guys ever bonded over gardening? Is there anything you’ve taught one another or have a mutual appreciation for in the garden?

I don’t think he’s really focused on gardening! He has a music career that is very intense and very big. Very big. I’m sure he has lovely gardens. I’ve never been to his house, but his studio has beautiful spaces and lots of plants inside the studio. Somebody’s taking care, and I’m sure he appreciates it. When he came to visit my farm he really liked it, and he asked lots of questions. I hope he comes to my house in Maine this summer.​