Wednesday 12 September 2012

Cheese making

Just finished my first batch of cheese making today from the supplies I bought online from Ozfarmer. I tried the whole milk ricotta, and took some action shots along the way. All in all it was very easy, and seemed to set up very well. I bought a cheese making kit and a cheese making book, and this seemed like the easiest cheese to start with. This batch used two litres of full cream homogenized milk, and made two individual cheese molds about the size of a teacup each (I couldn't be bothered weighing the end result). For one of them I made a homemade herb crust to go on it, with salt, pepper, chives, oregano, dill, parsely, and thyme. All of which were homegrown I must admit. :) I have some friends coming round tonight, so we'll get their opinions on what they think of the cheese! 
Cheese making supplies
Next project I think will be homemade ginger beer. :)



Milk up to temperature!
Adding the citric acid with coagulates the milk

Curdled!

Once the curds and whey have sat for about two hours to firm up


Ricotta in it's draining tray/mold thing

Fresh herbs for the crust


The final product! :D


Tuesday 4 September 2012

Worm farm and transitions meeting

Worm farm pre-production. Bucket on left has the coconut coir bedding you soak in water
Put together my worm farm the other day, these are a few shots to show how it went together. It was all in all very easy, and only took about half an hour from start to finish, and it's already got it's first batch of veggie scraps from cooking last night to munch on.:)


Coconut bedding once in the farm

Worms in their new home

The worm was ready for his close up.

Worm blanket that goes on top

Finished product!
I went to my first Guildford Town Transitions Kitchen Gardeners Society meeting on Sunday afternoon hosted at Andy & Rebecca's house to help them fill and plant three new raised garden beds. There was a good turnout, of probably around 20 people. We all had a bit of a chat and I got a chance to get acquainted with a few of the members. Because we had so many volunteers the actual hard labour was done in less than an hour I'd say, and then we had an afternoon tea brought by members. I brought a jar of my homemade tomato sauce, freshly brined olives and some extra lemons off our tree. I took home with me some oranges someone else brought to the sharing table. All in all it was a very fun afternoon getting to meet other people with similar goals and interests and look forward to going to my next one!
meet and greet

the boys mucking in


tomato stakes going in with Sophie (hosts two year old daughter) helping

Lots of hard work being done ;)

Last of the seedlings going in

Sophie watering some of her new veggies

Saturday 1 September 2012

Worm farm

Went to Bunnings today and as usual had three things on out list, but ended up with a shipping trolley full to the brim of household items that we apparently needed but didn't know about before we actually got there. I got a worm farm which I had been after for ages but never got round to buying, which I was very pleased with. I got the "Worm Cafe" which has three separate tiers for worms and looked big enough to meet our requirements. I'll set it up tomorrow morning before heading off to my very first Guildford Transitions meeting which I'm looking forward to. We're off to a members house who is starting off her vegetable garden for the spring and we're going over to help her plant it all out. Should be good fun to meet other people around the area with similar outlooks and aspirations. Will be nice to get some advice on plants, soils, etc. as well!
Will update more once I get back. :)