Komokoriki Farm Sanctuary

If you milk a hobby herd of dairy goats (or cows) and like eating cheese, the conversation soon turns to cheesemaking. While there are many cottage industry cheesemakers in Aotearoa New Zealand (such as award winning Belle Chevre Creamery goat cheeses in Waipu), the question of what to do with your own surplus milk means cheesemaking is a great option. There are a few cheesemaking courses around, but the easiest option is to get a cheesemaking setup and give it a go yourself.   (If you don’t have a dairy herd      or  surplus milk, buying raw milk at the gate from a local producer is a good option too).

The best cheesemaking book I have encountered is the popular “How to make Cheese” written by New Zealander, Jean Mansfield.  It’s a taonga/treasure of a book with information on all the preparatory stages (including equipment) and 50 wonderful artisan cheese recipes with step by step instructions on how to make these delicious cheeses, from mozarella, brie and halloumi (in 30 minutes!) to beautiful cheddar, edam, colby, gouda and wensleydale and many more!

Jean starts at the very beginning with chapters on the milk, the ingredients, the techniques and a troubleshooting chapter, “What went wrong with my cheese?”!   Her recipes go from simple to more complex cheses; from the soft and white-rinded cheeses, to the hard cheeses, stretched-curd cheeses, blue cheeses, washed rind cheeses and fancy and flavoured cheeses!

As well as an excellent glossary and ‘The Homemade Cheese Checklist’, Jean also details the ’10 rules for successful cheesemaking’.  At the risk of giving away her ‘secrets’ these include; cleaning and sanitising everything that’s going to contact your milk, curd and cheese; pasteurise your high quality milk; use an accurate thermometer that is easy to read; always know the strength of your rennet; and pay strict attention to ingredient measures, temperature, timing, and the size of cut curds.

So you can see that cheesemaking is an art and a science, and relies heavily on accuracy and commitment to the end product.   Sadly, I discovered that I have become allergic to dairy products, so my journey with my specialist cheesemaking equipment and beautiful traditional cheese press have come to an end.  If you’re keen to take up the cheesemaking challenge and would like a wonderful setup of equipment PLUS Jean Mansfield’s wonderful cheesemaking book (!), I have mine for sale, so do get in touch via the comments option below … OR via my Facebook and Messenger or by phone or email.

We have a resident pair of Kingfisher near the house that nest in a big old Phoenix Palm beside the swimming pool. They have a luxury roost!   On the lawn about 20 metres away is our rain gauge, and one (or maybe both) of the Kingfishers recently decided that the rain gauge was a brilliant perch for sitting quietly and catching prey.   Clever stuff, except they sat and delicately pooped straight down into the rain gauge!  Pete was getting a bit miffed with having to constantly clean it out and it was hampering his rain recording accuracy too!   What to do!?  From my experience with bird behaviour, I suggested Pete plant a higher perch in front of the rain gauge

in the direction the Kingfisher usually sat.  It worked perfectly!  No bird likes to be out perched!  S/he now takes her place daily on the specially made perch with dowel just the right width for best grip.  I watched this morning as it scooped up a skink and sat on its new perch, consuming its prey in seconds.

In that same area is one of four little Kawakawa saplings that I planted to see if I can grow these native medicinal trees to supplement the ONE mature Kawakawa tree we have on our 6ha.  Our beautiful 5m high x 3m wide verdant Kawakawa tree is near the house, behind the vege

gardens.  It’s growing below a sandy/clay cliff of about 20m, at the base of a little hill we call Pig Hill (cos we had Kunekunes there once).  I love this Kawakawa tree which is sprouting candles again this spring.  It’s a taonga/treasure that clings on about a metre up the cliff where it must be relatively free draining.

Concerned that we only had this one tree, a few months ago I bought four young Kawakawa saplings about half a metre high from a local grower.  I planted one in the same bank/cliff about 10m along from our thriving Kawakawa, but this new one is struggling.  Its leaves are a pale washed out green.  The second one, I planted across the shady race from the happy older tree, among other natives like karamu coprosma and pittosporum.  Its doing well with lots of new dark green leaves.

Goodness three years have passed since my last entry!  Too busy to ramble ay!  Twin grandsons and a whole lot of life later, I’ve decided to again keep a farmlet diary of sorts.

Our vege garden is pottering along after a good Spring and it reminded me of the “Green Fingers” thing.  When you get a good harvest, people tend to shrug and say, well you do have “green fingers” meaning I think, a natural bent for growing plants.   My experience is that you have to grow green fingers.  Maybe some people are born with a natural ability to grow anything anywhere?  I’ve found in ten plus years living here, that my knowledge and ability to grow good veges has increased season by season as I’ve tried new crops or new ways of doing last season’s crops.  Give it a go and you soon find out what works and what does not!  Vege gardening is definitely learning by trial and error!  Water is crucial to most vege plants – they can put up with a few dry days, but a warm windy week will stress them out totally.   Water water water!  And you can water rhubarb all week, but if you don’t feed it generously, it won’t thrive.  Ours was looking a bit strung out until I emptied the chook shed pooped on straw around it.  Boom, instant success!!

My latest epiphany is the power of biochar to supercharge the soil.  I use it layered in our Bokashi bucket and by the time each cured bucket mass is ready to bury in the vege garden, it’s all on!  Into the Bokashi bucket goes the 2-3 days of organic kitchen waste, squashed down with a garden fork/trowel combo tool, sprinkled with Bokashi Zing, and then a layer of Biochar.   Lid on and aerobic processes begin!  The bokashi mix charges up the multi-faceted Biochar and gets it singing.  Layer after layer of kitchen waste/zing/bichar fills the bucket over a few weeks.  That bucket is put aside to “cure” when full, and the next bucket is started.  When I’m ready to use the fully cured bucket, I find a suitable spot in the vege garden plots where I want to enrich the soil.  We dig a trench, add in the bucket of zingy biocharred bokashi, cover it well with soil and usually add the week’s coffee grounds across the top which helps deter wildlife from investigating.  Leave it to rot down and power up for about a month and then plant over the top.

I’ve been so concerned about tired soils in our vege garden that I planted a green crop of lupins and mustard seeds to fix nitrogen and give the plots an extra boost before summer cropping.  Looks like this is working well, but mostly this month’s success is due to the bokashi! Like the little Roma acid-free tomato seedling I planted over the top of a recent bokashi-ed area! After 2-3 weeks it has grown soooo fast and looks healthy and happy!

Here at Komokoriki we have a north facing hill of grass that stretches up from the house paddock to the top of the ridge.  This flat area of grass perched almost at the ridgeline is protected by the tall bush from the southerly with the hill dropping steeply away on both sides.

It’s a wonderful vantage point with the valley opening up in front and bonus views nearby … of Kereru doing stall dives, Grey Warblers trilling in the bush edge, Fantails practicing aeronautic twirls as they forage for insects, and even a Tomtit putting in an appearance during my latest visit.

To the west is dense mature podocarp forest and on that fenceline there is tall, old manuka that gives way to Puriri and Rimu trees – jewels of green among the ferns and understorey natives.  It’s a deep valley of native trees that falls steeply from the ridge and provides a sanctuary for the birds.  Tomtit usually frequent the lower valley, Tui disappear deep into the thickest trees, and Kereru nest up near the ridgeline, close to their favoured large Puriri tree.  Above and around the hilltop grass, stretching along the ridgeline,  are mostly beautiful kauri trees, rimu, nikau and kahikatea too.

To the east of the hilltop are slopes of regenerating native bush with punga and manuka the dominant trees nearby and far too much gorse and weeds among it.  Below the regenerating bush is a small housing area that struggles for sunshine hours.  Beyond and around this valley to the east is another nearby range of hills covered in podocarps – and the occasional pine tree.  About 50 hectares of bush in view there.

Our grassy hilltop is protected by the dense ridges of native bush.  It’s warm and quiet there, isolated from most worldly intrusions.  The ground is covered with a thick mantle of kikuyu grass and fringed below with goat-sculpted gorse bushes.  On a still, sunny day or when the wind is southwest, it’s a warm haven for goats and people.   It’s a great place to take time-out and decompress.  Happiness is lying in the long grass, soaking up the sunshine and gazing down the valley!

When we moved here nearly six years ago, there was a mass of green hedging outside the kitchen window that blocked the view of the pool.  Probably when they planned and planted it years ago, the view was fine for a while.  One day last year, I decided we should pull out the hedging and put in a herb garden that would be handy to the kitchen, we could see from the kitchen window, and would open up the view to the pool.

Pete obliged and built a beautiful raised garden that I filled with a variety of herbs.  It’s great to have a wonderful choice of tasty herbs to add to meals, but there was a distinct lack of colour apart from the occasional purple or red of a flowering herb.  I put in a yellow rose and some orange Calendula behind it and that was good, but no pizazz!

Months passed until I had a eureka moment!  Portulaca might like it in the well-drained sunny spot of the herb garden, and Kings had some in stock.  Those portulaca come in some beautiful colours and as soon as the sun is out, they are showing off a rainbow of colour.

In summer, I wanted a sheltered spot for growing Sunflowers that I could see from the house.  I germinated some seeds and popped them into pots beside the herb garden, and now we have a riot of colour that greets us every morning and blazes during a sunny afternoon!  Sunflowers make me happy.  They feed the soul!  And strong colours are a precious gifts of nature! Reds, pinks, purples and yellows – they’ve transformed our outlook! And the bumble bees and honey bees approve! Next I’m planning to add some Sweet Pea colours.