Cheese can be made at home, did you know?

I've gotten some wonderful gifts in the last few days... My former coworker (and current friend) Cheryl Lynn surprised me with a big tall box on my doorstep yesterday; she had thoughtfully sent me a beautiful honeysuckle vine, about 3 feet in height, presumably as a going-away present. Thanks Cheryl!

My neighbor also showed up at my door with two potted young bell pepper plants, one orange and one red. We've been swapping gardening tales as of late, and I gave her one of my many flats of spinach seedlings in return. She showed up with her 6-month-old on her hip, and in the course of our talking, her two boys, about 4 and 7, showed up as well. Ty was overjoyed to have kids in the house; he LOVES children and babies. Hint, hint, Artie! Then this morning, Artie's friend/employee Seamus showed up for their Saturday workday. I had some of Martha's fresh zucchini/carrot muffins for the boys and Seamus had brought me an assortment of terra cotta pots for the plants he's been watching grow week by week, when they come by for a homemade Saturday lunch, made by yours truly.

Speaking of homemade, and having to do with my garden only in terms of growing/making my own food, I am proud to say that today I ...drumroll please, MADE MY OWN CHEESE! That's right, at this very moment I have a fist-sized hunk of handmade mozzarella in my fridge! I recently finished Barbara Kingsolver's fantastic new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in which she describes her and her family's year of moving to a farm and learning to eat locally, growing most of their own food (see where my inspiration came from?). In the book, Kingsolver describes making her own cheese from fresh local farm milk. She attended a seminar by "Ricki the Cheese Queen" and listed Ricki's website, and here we are with our own mozzarella (btw, I got my "Ricki the Cheese Queen" cheese making kit, which is essential for the recipe plus the citric acid and rennet tablets required in cheese making, at Rainbow Grocery in SF; probably available at natural foods stores but if not, just Google it and order directly).

My mozzarella is AMAZING and tastes and looks exactly like store-bought. But I made it, how fun!!! Pictures of everything above coming soon~

Dog in the garden--oh no!

Today was very warm on my deck. I'm a little concerned about my cucumbers, they seem to be fighting for their lives in the great outdoors. So far they're winning, but they wilt pretty easily during the day. I'm going to make little shady tents for them until they get a bit bigger and acclimated to being in the sun all day. My beans are going crazy, and there was a little mishap yesterday with my dog in the garden, which resulted in one of the tomato plants going from 6" to about 1" in height. It wasn't Ty's fault; Artie was chasing him around and chased him right into the garden--oops!

I'm finding that the soil dries out very easily and I'm watering every day, although it's only March. I think I need to really soak the bed so it's damp from the bottom up, hopefully that will help it retain more moisture. Things are looking good; the sweet peas are really getting tall and I've concocted a trellis for them out of stakes and dental floss. I'll post pictures of that soon; I'm very proud of my innovative solution trellis-wise!

A tribute to John McLaren, garden genius extraordinaire

I lived in SF for three years before moving a bit south to the Peninsula. Living in SF with no outdoor area and cold foggy summers was dire at best, but there was one great thing about being an urbanite--Golden Gate Park! I spent most of my free time roaming the Park with my dog, and so this post is in honor of John McLaren, the Scotsman responsible for turning the foggy sand dunes of the early 1900s into the glorious Golden Gate Park of today. The statue of him in the picture (link above) is at the southwest end of the Rhododendron Dell where my dog Ty and I spent hours and hours during our stint in SF.

Suddenly unemployed...

With the advent of Spring arriving at the same time of my layoff, I've decided to devote much of my time to my garden. With a nice, full-sun deck, some lumber, hardware, seeds and soil, my goal is to create a huge and gorgeous garden full of flowers and vegetables to last all summer long. In addition to my established geraniums, nasturtiums and alyssum, I'm growing from seed sweet peas, black-eyed susans, sunflowers, cucumbers, radishes, spinach, bell peppers, tomatoes, and green beans--lots and lots of green beans. Stay tuned to find out how my garden progresses throughout the season!