Having spent the hot Saturday past moving Artie's weight bench to storage, my garden is complete, for now at least. If we don't count watering nearly every day, that is! My sunflowers are really growing like crazy and their stems are as thick as straws. The beans are paling a bit though, and I hope they do okay--I'm really looking forward to the vining bean trees (yes, that's a reference to the amazing Ms. Barbara Kingsolver).

I finally bit the bullet and made the decision to order plans for a cheese press instead of paying $300 for a new fancy one. Our friend Pix calls himself a miracle woodworker, so maybe he can make my cheese press in exchange for some cheese...good deal, right? Once I have the press I'll be able to make all the hard cheeses--cheddar, swiss, gouda, as well as molded cheeses like blue, roquefort, stilton, and edible-rind cheese such as brie and camembert.

My baby spinach is growing up!

Just thought I'd give you an update on my garden--it's been a while! Everything is looking really great. I transplanted my large tomato plant to its own planter, and it seems very happy there. Two of the tomato plants are now sporting little yellow flowers. The cucumbers are definitely holding their own now as well, and each plant has 4-6 leaves now. Check out the pictures of the garden this morning! (As you can see, it's a little crowded. This is due to Artie's weight bench taking up a large portion of the deck! If you are in need of a weight bench, PLEASE let me know! I need more room for the garden!)

Homemade ricotta with edible flowers!

I just whipped up a batch of homemade ricotta--I continue to be surprised when my homemade cheese tastes exactly like store-bought! I then put it into plastic-lined cupcake tins (the big one was made in a cereal bowl) with edible flowers from my garden. I used nasturtiums, basil and dill. Check out the pictures! Next I'm going to try chevre, I just need to find out where to get goat milk around here:)

A visit to Harley Goat Farm...

So in the course of my cheesemaking, I was looking online for more information about local cheeses. I stumbled upon a website for a goat dairy called Harley Farms, and found that it's located here in San Mateo County, about an hour away in Pescadero. The website was fantastic and I noticed that they give tours every weekend. Voila! My Mom and I went today and we could not have had a better time or been more impressed!

So. Harley Farms is run by Dee Harley, who lives on the premises with her husband and son. It's a small operation and the tour was so incredible! For those of you reading this who live in driving distance of Pescadero, you simply must go. My Mom and I (and the other 15 or so people on the tour) got to play with the goats in the fields, including the 148 baby goats born on the farm so far this Spring. Every single person on the tour got to milk a goat (!!!), tour the goat cheese making facility, and of course, sample lots and lots of beautiful, scrumptious goat cheese.

I recommend a visit to this place strongly, enthusiastically, and with the knowledge that I'll be back again, soon. Over the summer there are nearby U-Pick strawberry and olallieberry farms, and the small town of Pescadero is authenticly small and charming, as is the dairy itself. It's $20 for the 2-hour tour, and it's completely worth your time and money. Tours sell out quickly, so book yours soon to see the baby goats while it's still Springtime! The drive on Highway 1 is gorgeous and it makes for a spectacular day all around. Go see for yourself!

PS The tour guide told us goats are the third smartest animal, after pigs and then dogs, I'm guessing (I'm not counting primates of course). I cannot convey how adorable, soft, sweet and non-smelly they were. My goat-coveting in the previous post is now amplified by about ten and I can't wait to buy some property where I can realize this dream! I think Ty will really like to have some goaty sisters.

Cheese and bread, my way...

Over the hot, hot weekend my plants sucked in water like crazy, I was watering them twice a day to keep up with their thirst! Now that we're back to cooler weather, I felt like baking. I just took 3 beautiful loaves of whole-wheat bread out of the oven and the house smells like a bakery! I also crafted some more homemade mozzarella, it turned out wonderfully as well.

The garden's coming along great, the baby spinach now looks like baby spinach, but I'm going to wait until it's regular adult spinach to harvest. I have small green strawberries and a couple of new additions to the garden--dill and lavender, both planted yesterday. I must say, being laid off sure has improved my quality of life by about 1000%--no complaints here:)

What a difference a week makes...

My Mom and I went to tour Sunset Magazine's gardens in Menlo Park last week. Although smaller than we expected, it was beautiful, and was not surprisingly divided into sections: Desert, Southern California, Coast, Northern California, just like the legendary magazine itself. I must say, though, my favorite part was the small vegetable garden and chicken coop. I'm thinking we need chickens as soon as we have some land of our own~~maybe a goat too... I wonder how Ty will feel about those additions to the family?

I potted most of the rest of the seedlings and now my kitchen is feeling like herself again. I'm still having some trouble with the cucumbers; the seedlings in my big homemade planter are doing well by now, but the more recent transplants are struggling. As long as I can get 3 or 4 prolific cucumber plants out of the lot I'll be happy! My beans, on the other hand, are growing like crazy and I may have to thin them at some point. Incidentally, thinning, to me, is one of the saddest parts of gardening. I hate pulling up beautiful plants whom I've raised from seeds (I have a strong tendency towards anthropomorphism)! But if not doing it will kill them all by depleting the nutrients and leaving less than enough room, what choice do I have?

I was feeling similarly about pinching back my sweet peas. The seed packet stated very clearly that to get the fullest plants and the most blooms, pinch off the top inch of the seedling once it was 3-4 inches long. I almost wasn't going to do it but at the last minute found myself wincing as I pinched off a few token tops of my beloved sweet peas. They still aren't as tall as I'd hoped they would be by now, but they are doing fine and are green and healthy.

...Looks like we'll be having bell peppers coming out of our ears this summer. The seeds I planted didn't sprout, and so I gratefully accepted some hand-sprouted seeds (dried from her crop from last year) from my neighbor, as previously mentioned. I was about to toss the entire 2 flats of peppers after they failed to sprout after nearly a month (the packet stated 14-21 days) but I gave them a few more days and they all popped up like crazy! Now I've got tiny pepper plants EVERYWHERE. Not that I'll be complaining once they grow--we've got red, orange and yellow.

Sorry about the delay in photos but keep an eye out, they're coming soon...

A picture's worth a thousand words.

This is a beautiful photo my Dad sent me a while back--it catches my breath every time I look at it:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/510607717_0257f1b16b.jpg?v=0

Thanks Dad!