Yogurt Making Made Easy

This post goes out to the Damsel at Damselindisdress.wordpress.com. The Damsel has a post about making yogurt from powdered milk, if that interests you check it out. I made yogurt from fresh milk using the same method. Before reading her post I was using the crockpot to make yogurt, which works but takes a bit more effort. Want to make your own yogurt? It's so easy!

First you will need some starter cultures, the wonderful little bacteria bugs that make yogurt yogurt. You can either purchase cultures and have them mailed to you or you can use yogurt from the store -much easier. Here are a few things to keep in mind when purchasing your starter yogurt, while not all of them are absolutely necessary they're good ideas. Try to find a yogurt with as few ingredients as possible. The yogurt should be plain, and without pectin. It absolutely MUST contain active live cultures -duh- most yogurts tout this on the label these days so it should be easy to find. Remember that the cultures in your starter yogurt will be the cultures in your homemade yogurt so if you want something specific -I'm looking at you activia consumers- buy accordingly. I've read that stoneyfield farms yogurt is highly reccommended as a starter.

Here's what you do, in clean, ovensafe crockery (I actually used the crock from my crockpot) combine 6 ounces of starter yogurt with 4 cups of milk. Whisk well. Heat your oven to 275 degrees. Once the oven has reached 275 degrees turn it off and place your covered yogurt-to-be inside. Let it sit for 8 to 12 hours. When you return it should be yogurt! Admittedly it will not be quite as firm as store bought yogurt, that's because it doesn't have pectin in it. Store it in the fridge and enjoy it in good health. Remember to save 6 ounces as a starter for the next batch. Look at you making your own food:)

Cheese Making

Here is a picture of my very enthusiastic friend Nikol, holding a cheese making book. Can you guess why she's so excited?
Because we made cheese, Yo!
First we read the instructions. They were awesome, if not completely forthcoming -more on this later-- notice the almost completely non-sequiter goat in cap and gown. It made my year.
Next we had to heat the milk to 90 degrees. (Was it 90 degrees? I can't remember, anyway...) That's my hand giving the thumbs up, I helped, in my own way. --methinks someone should have cut her nails before cheesemaking night. That's not right.
The milk started to curdle. We got very excited.
It continued curdling...
...and our anticipation and excitement grew with each passing moment.
Then it started to look -and smell- like vomit and we became slightly less enthusiastic. But we remained undeterred!
We separated the curd from the whey. The cheese's likeness to vomit continued, on a thicker level. My good friend Siobhan considered saving the whey for pizza dough (who knew?) but ultimately she poured it down the drain, we didn't fight her on it.
Ingrid was skeptical that the cheese would turn out.
After heating the curd in the microwave to an unholy temperature it had to be pulled and coerced into cheeselike form. The instructions recommended wearing rubber gloves. The cheesemaking kit included latex gloves. We used them, despite our misgivings that they might give the cheese an unpalatable flavor. Rookie mistake.
We continued pulling the cheese, unwittingly...
It was starting to look cheesy.
We formed it into logs and chilled it.
The cheese worked out! Even Ingrid couldn't deny it.
But I'll be honest, and tell you, it did not taste good. Our downfall was the latex gloves. Next time we'll be sure to use utensils to pull the lava cheese. The other girls were champs and ate all of their cheese. I couldn't stomach it. Wimp.

Some of us had a little too much fun making cheese.

Big Worm Bin, Little Victories

Here's some good news: it hasn't even been two months since I established my first worm bin and I've already expanded to a second. That's right, the worms quickly multiplied so today I set up a second -and larger- worm bin. The parents have been giving us their compostables to feed the worms so we are blessed with a plethora of kitchen wastes. Which means, ultimately, a plethora of compost! I harvested the worm castings a few days ago, there was a LOT! And already both bins are full again. One of my favorite parts of this story is that we didn't have to buy more worms. They were just there for the taking. Simple pleasures. Although now that I think about it, at this rate, we could become overrun with worm bins by the end of the year. There are worse things. Most likely I'll be able to start giving worms away to friends...I've already got several in mind. You know who you are, and you've been warned.

Our little homestead is running great these days. I spent most of monday and tuesday in the kitchen baking things for family birthday parties (we have quite a few birthdays this time of year). I also made yogurt, which I then made into yogurt cheese. Jonas and I have been spreading it on crackers for morning snack. Correction, I usually do the spreading, he eats it at his leisure. And on top of the yogurt cheese I made bread, rolls, and started a jar of sprouts to be used on friday.

I've been making our bread for well over a year. I just can't believe that! We haven't bought store bread in a YEAR! How time does fly. When I first told one of my family members that I was going to attempt to make all of our bread she cautioned me --be careful, it's hard. And it was a bit trying at first, we suffered through a lot of not-so-good bread. But now, it's almost second nature, part of the routine. I'm bringing this all up because it correlates to the yogurt thing. Why have I started making yogurt? Because the guys that haul our recycling away have announced that they now only accept #1 and #2 plastics. Yogurt containers are #5. We eat quite a bit of yogurt, especially Jonas. It pained me to put those containers in the trash. So I started making our own. I had thought about doing it for awhile but this recycling thing really gave me the kick I needed. The first batch of yogurt didn't go so well. Then I talked to my friend Nikol -hi bff!- who had made yogurt before and she recommended using a crockpot to keep it at an even temp while fermenting. Brilliant! Now the yogurt making is a breeze. Hopefully a year from now I can come onto the blog and write about how I've been making all of our yogurt for a year. Small steps. It makes me feel great that I know what my family is eating. I know exactly what is in that yogurt and bread. In a dream world I would know the cow/goat that the milk for the yogurt came from, and grow the wheat for the bread myself. Again, small steps.


Wondering how you yourself can make your own yogurt? That's coming up in a post next week. I'm waiting until the next time I make it, so the post will have lots of lovely pictures to go with.

Not Quite What I Was Planning

First, some pictures:
The sunberries, which have take off! They have outgrown their allotted space...and then some.

One of the rows of green beans, with a little fennel at the very end.

A row of hot and sweet peppers I planted, including, red marconi, better belle, tequila sunrise, jalapeno, chocolate beauty and pasilla bajio. We obviously have been using a lot of shredded junk mail and newspaper to mulch and keep the weeds down. My sister and her boyfriend Ben came for a visit on memorial day and Ben, looking into the backyard said to me: Uh, someone dumped a bunch of trash in your yard.

Here's what the trifle tomatoes look like these days.

A handful of sunberries, taken several days ago.

The title of this post is stolen from the six word memoirs book. But it seems very appropriate, as, the garden this year has turned out to be something entirely different from what I planned. Isn't that always how it goes?

The Edamame still hasn't come up, and I've given up on it. Maybe I'll try again next year, or possibly even later in the season, if the mood strikes me.
I have fallen in love with the volunteer plants. Particularly the zucchini, MY it is a large plant!

The self waterers, which had my heart at the beginning, have become quite the disappointment. Many of the tomatoes in self waterers have seemingly incurable blossom end rot, and the plants just can't handle heat well at all. On the other hand, I think all of the slaving I have done over the ground soil is finally paying off. There's one tomato plant inparticular -a red pear- that has out grown the self waterers. It's SO vibrant, and hardly ever needs watering. While I still hold a place in my heart for the self waterers, I think I'm going to use them for smaller things like green beans, and basil next year. Here's a picture of some tomatoes on the wonderful red pear!

June is here already, and we are beginning to enjoy the fruits of our labor here at our house. pear and jellybean tomatoes are ripening here and there. I seem to forget, every year, just how much better a homegrown tomato is compared to store bought. The brambles are ripening also, at the rate of a berry a day. Jonas, upon eating his first raspberry promptly picked and ate all of the remaining (and unripe!) berries on the plant. And here I thought I'd be fighting off the birds, apparently the problem comes in a form closer to home.
The sunberries are coming on strong as the weather heats up. We're picking a good size handful every day. Jonas eats them faster than I can pick them most days. Today while picking sunberries A RAT ran out from the bushes. I was thoroughly disgusted and quit the berry picking for the day. I guess this means the rats from last year have returned. Isn't that just wonderful. Now we're just waiting for the japanese beetles to arrive and then the vexations will be complete...hopefully.

Oh! And I also harvested the garlic today! I kept thinking it was too early, that I had to wait until june...then it dawned on me, um, it's june! So I pulled it up and learned a valuable lesson, the the size of the stalk does not in any way correlate to how big the garlic head will be. Some of the wispiest stalks produced the biggest heads. Go figure.

Though the garden hasn't sprung up exactly as I mapped it out it is still a thing of beauty to me. It fills me with glee to think that by this time next month I'll be up to my neck in tomatoes. Canning season is just around the corner. It'll be keeping me extra busy this year as I have been put in charge of the parent's apricot harvest. Greg's mom will be in Europe for a month, and therefore unable to jam. And despite Jonas picking the green apricots off of the tree, the harvest will still be sizeable.

Can You Dig It?

One of our lovely roses

This has been a very busy week in our garden! The grow heap is finally underway, I planted an herb garden, and the "bean" area is taking shape.

I put the herb garden in on tuesday. I really want to make it into a rock/herb garden but lack the rocks at this point. All in good time I suppose. I tried somewhat to keep the left side of the plot for culinary herbs and the right side for tea/medicinal herbs. Of course some herbs fall into both categories so it's not a strictly followed set-up. So far the herb area houses, english lavender, french lavender, sage, tarragon, creeping thyme, lemon thyme, greek oregano, lemon verbena, chammomile, basil, and chives. I'd like to put in some bee balm, lovage, echinacea, and mint (in pots). As a testament to how invasive mint can be let me tell you this, I've found a mint plant growing in the center of the herb plot. I have never planted mint so it must be from the previous occupant (Greg's grandma). I have tilled and weeded and done all manner of things to this plot and yet the mint remains. You gotta respect that staying power.

All week, all season really, I've been working to prepare the bean area. It has been an adventure. At one point, in december I think, I covered it in cardboard to smother any weeds, then I neglected it so while the cardboard kept some weeds out it acted as a mulch and protected others. It also did a fine job housing all kinds of not-so-beneficial insects, (read: slugs earwigs and ALARMINGLY fast moving spiders, seriously what are those things). We have never had trouble with slugs before but this year they are rampant. I'm going to try the old beer-in-a-jar trick, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Anyway, this week I really buckled down and got the area cleared. I spread five bags of manure only to realize I'll need at least three more. I've mounded the manure up into two long rows. Since the rows are slanted I am left with an awkward triangle space at the corner, I'm most likely going to be putting three tomato plants there. Which should round out the grand total (so far) of tomato plants to...Twenty. We have had, and continue to have volunteer tomato (and squash) plants all over the garden, just a perk from using compost I guess. Whenever one gets in the way I pot it up so I have several waiting to go in the ground.

The Bean Area
The two long rows will become four when I divide them each with a watering trough. I used this trough method for the sunberries and they are growing by leaps and bounds so I've decided to put it to use for the beans and squash as well. One of the rows is planted with onions. I planted the onions close together so we can harvest some for green onion use and leave some to bulb up. The onions share a trough with the Envy Soybeans, which I planted this afternoon. I think I'm going to plant the remaining two rows with bush beans but I'm torn with wanting to put in more peppers so one may be bush beans and the other sweet peppers. I already have two rows of bush beans on the other side of the sunberries.

A few winters ago when it got ridiculously cold here in San Diego one of our shrubs along the fence died leaving us with a bare spot in the shrubbery, which I delight in, I hate wasting water on ornamental things. I'm thinking about planting some dried beans from the cupboard there and seeing what I come up with. We eat a lot of dried beans so being able to grow at least a portion of our own would be helpful.

Our tomato plants are becoming heavy with fruit, although Jonas likes to lighten their loads every so often by picking green tomatoes. This does not make me happy. Jonas's favorite word is "ball" he says it at least 50 times a day. He ascribes the word to anything remotely round...including tomatoes. The poor kid just can't resist and I'm worried with each scolding that he'll catch on to the no picking rule just in time for, well, picking. Of course by then he'll be too afraid to pick anything. Sheesh. Here's one of the selfwaterers, still growing like crazy!

Here are some tomatoes in the ground that have taken off as well.

We've started getting some sunberries, at the rate of 2 or 3 a day. The bushes are COVERED in green berries so when they really start ripening, holy mole. Jonas really likes them, which is good. They're sweet but have a definite tomato-ish flavor. Good news, since eating the berries Jonas has stopped whacking the plants with his shovel, progress. We've also been rewarded with one raspberry and one boysenberry. There are lots of green berries on all of the brambles, but this one early ripening berry thing confounds me.
The sunberries and if you look in the foreground you can see the bean seedlings

And fianlly, the grow heap. Greg and his dad picked up a load of dirt from Alpine Rock and Block today. Some went to the parents house and some came to us. I planted fifteen cucurbits in the grow heap this afternoon. There are already three cucurbit volunteers in the heap. If all goes according to plan our harvest should be wonderful! I've planted: Lemon Ball Cucumbers (LOVE THESE TO DEATH!), Carolina Cross #183 watermelon, zucchini, yellow straightneck squash, several other summer squashes from a mixture so they'll be a surprise, Prescott Fond Blanc melon, Marina Di Chioggia pumpkin, Long Island cheese squash, waltham butternut squash, and Sugar Baby Watermelon. Most of the cucurbit seeds I got from seedsavers.org. I have several other squashes that I'm going to plant on the other side of the yard, they won't get the benefit of the grow heap, but whatever. Here's the grow heap from one angle...
and another. It may look like just a mound of dirt but you wait.

And here is a reward for those of you who have stuck out this blog post to the end. What troopers you are. While perusing garden blogs I came across this lovely nugget of a website www.pathtofreedom.com. It's all about one family's urban homestead in Pasadena. What an inspiration! Their home looks like my dream. Over 350 different kinds of edible and medicinal plants growing on 1/10th of an acre. And that's just the beginning. It's really cool, check it out.

Worm bin, self waterers, basically an update on the same old stuff.

Hello Faithful Blog Followers (or half hearted blog followers, as the case may be.) I can't believe it's already May! May and I still don't have the cucurbits in their grow heap yet. Time has gotten away from me.

The worm bin is a great success! I haven't harvested the compost yet, though I could, there's plenty in there. However yesterday I harvested the tea from the drip container. And by "harvested" of course I mean "poured it into a glass jar." The amount of springtails living in the drip container was astounding, and seriously gross, I felt like they were crawling on me for the rest of the day. The bramble fruits received the tea gratefully, I assume. I poured the half cup of tea into my big green watering can, filled the can with water and poured it over the leaves and soil. The worms eat the scraps I feed them so quickly that I can hardly keep up. I've read and heard that worms aren't fond of any brassica (broccoli, cabbage, etc.) or onion family member (onion, garlic, leeks etc.) Also you have to take it easy on the citrus because of it's natural pesticide properties. So that cuts down on what I can feed them, we go through a lot of citrus in our house, and I do mean A LOT! The worms still get fed properly but they go through food so quickly I'm worried that they may be over crowded. Should I start a second worm bin? I think I'll hold off on that for awhile. It sure would be nice to have a second one come summer though, we'll have quite a lot of scraps when things start ripening.
Here's a picture of the worm bin.


And the inside of the worm bin a few days ago...


I sprouted 5 black trifle tomatoes awhile ago, if you recall. They grew quickly and feeling pressed to get them into the ground I dedicated part of the grow heap to them. I saved one to put into the last self waterer I have to make. I should still have enough room left for the cucurbits. As it stands now the grow heap is just last years compost pile spread out over one of the garden beds. Yes, I finally moved it over. The portion now dedicated to black trifles will not get a layer of soil, rather the compost will act as a mulch and that's that.

Most of our tomatoes already have fruits on them! The silvery fir tree tomatoes are loaded! Silvery fir tree tomatoes are indeterminate so it's somewhat expected that they should bear a lot of fruit all at once. Still, it's exciting.

On the right side of the yard I've started planting bush beans. I'm working this week on preparing an area for edamame, more bush beans, onions and maybe eggplant. The sunberries have really taken off since the weather has warmed. Jonas has it in for the sunberry plants and whacks them with a shovel if given half a chance. What a weird kid. Still the sunberries are getting larger and there is something to be said for that.

If I haven't stressed this enough already let me say it again, the self watering containers have exceeded my best expectations! The tomato plants in them are simply huge! And they grow so quickly they seem to need tying to their stakes every day! It's only may and I'm starting to wonder what I'm going to do when they out grow their stakes. That time is fast approaching. The red pear is spilling over the edges in every direction. The brandywine's leaves are bigger than my hand! Greg and I have decided to add a lot more self waterers for next year. I can't believe what a difference the constant supply of water has made to the plants. I'm very excited to try carrots in them come winter. Here are several pictures of the self waterers I took a few days ago.

Dress and Worm Bin

After reading Made From Scratch, I got excited about sewing some of my own clothes. So I've been working on sewing a dress for myself. I picked out a pattern and the material and as of last night I've got the bodice done (sans zipper). I'm way too excited about having a dress. I can never find a dress that I like that also fits me. They're usually too short. In making this dress I actually added three inches onto the skirt length just to be sure. Just another perk to sewing your own stuff I guess:) Hooray! I love dresses and just don't wear them enough, usually they're reserved for church and special occasions. When I was looking at some old patterns online there was one that I fell in love with, a housewife dress from the 50's. Those were the days, a dress and pearls everyday. I tell myself I'd wear dresses more often if my daily activities allowed. Activities like, gardening, corralling Jonas, turning the compost, shoveling manure into our four door family car. On a related note the old-ish couple across the street from us work in their yard every Saturday. The woman, Mary, always wears a mid-thigh denim skirt (in varying colors) with jewelry and everything. That's my kinda gal! Sometimes it gets a little graphic when she climbs the bank, but she looks good! But I digress... I'll post some pictures of the dress when it is completed.

Last saturday My friends Siobhan and Nikol and I went to Summer's Past Farms for the sweet pea maze, composting class and general merriment. I left with another lavender, French Lavender this time, and Lemon Verbena. I've had my mind set on growing lemon verbena for a little while and I'm so happy they had it at summer's past farms. It smells amazing and I can't wait until it's established so that I can make tea from it's leaves. I really wanted to get my hands on some scented geraniums but they were plum out.
The composting class was a revelation. I learned that I can apply a light dusting of fireplace ash to my abundance of pine needles to get a healthier ph balance in my compost. Pine needles are very acidic and ash is very alkaline. A match made in heaven.
I also saw a really neat worm bin that the instructor had made herself out of two rubbermaid containers. I liked the idea so much that I made one for myself. I picked up a pound of red worms at the farmer's market today and now my worm bin is off and running. To make the worm bin you simply acquire two large tubs that nest inside one another with a reasonable amount of space in between the bottoms (for the tea to collect). The bottom container will act as a tea tray, for all of the glorious juices to drain into. Drill holes into the bottom of the second container and also along the top edge (for air circulation). And you're finished, fill it with worms, bedding and food scraps and you're in business.

I am grossly disappointed with our carrot harvest this year. I pulled them all up yesterday, they were in the ground twice as long as they needed to be and they were still shrimpy little things. We didn't use any of them, off to the compost pile for them. All of our carrots will be grown in containers next time, most likely in the self-waterers.

The self-waterers by the way are working marvelously!!! The tomato plants are already a very good size and we've been eating the basil. In fact we had some tonight on our pizza. We also had two strawberries this evening...which Jonas saw fit to pick off of the plant. I caught him when he was picking the second one, his little fist was so tight around the berry that I just let him pick it rather than have it squish in his hand. It wasn't ripe, but still tasted better than any store bought strawberry and it was even better than the carlsbad berries (though markedly smaller). Jonas loves himself some strawberries, I'll have to keep a closer eye on him now that he knows they are over there. We are having a similar issue with the peas, he loves them and is constantly trying to pick pods off the vine before they are ripe. It fills me with glee that Jonas has such experiences and will grow up with a knowledge of how food "works." But it's somewhat inconvenient to find unripened, half-chewed pods littering the ground.