Farmstead, Artisanal, Raw Milk Cheese

In early 2010, Nature's Harmony Farm began offering the first of its farmstead cheeses to the public.  Our grade A dairy was completed in late

2009, and milking of our closed-herd of Jersey cows began in November of that year. All of our cheeses are made from raw milk and are naturally aged, eliminating the need for preservatives or artificial colorings. And the grass that our cows eat is, of course, organic, and that is all that the cows eat.  It is important for us to control the process from beginning to end, so we own the cows, operate the dairy, make the cheese and sell directly to customers. 

Commitment to Integrity

Heritage and tradition is very important to us, so naturally our cheeses are based on traditional European methods that are adapted to our farm's local conditions in Elberton, Georgia.  We're not attempting to offer a cryovac packed, nationally distributed product that is the same time after time.  Rather, we embrace the fact that the seasonal nature of our grasses will lead to delicious and discernible variations in our seasonal cheeses. 

The taste of our cheeses reflect the diverse pastures, clean water and soil minerals that we carefully cultivate at Nature's Harmony Farm.  Our goal is to create unique cheeses that showcase the taste and quality of our organic, grassfed milk. Starter culture and rennet are added to our milk to form a curd, which is then cut and manipulated according to the variety, and moved to the pressing table. We coax development of each cheese in our aging room where each cheese is hand tended.  Finally, we will carefully select cheese for sale only when flavor has reached its peak.

We operate an on-farm licensed and inspected cheese plant and grade A dairy in the state of Georgia.

Cheese Varieties

We have begun making three varieties of raw milk cheese.

1. Harmony Crème de la Crème, a soft, bloomy rind mold-ripened cheese made with raw milk and aged flavorfully at 60 days; 
2. Elberton Blue, a natural rinded blue-veined cheese with a dense, flavorful paste that entices you to close your eyes and go "ummmm"; and,
3. Fortsonia, named after the local community in which we live, this cheese will be carefully aged to intensify the salty-sweet flavors and nut and brown butter aromas of the best Gruyere.  It will be offered as both a premium (aged 16 months plus) product as well as a younger (12 month) product.

Pastured Pork in Georgia? No way. Whey!

Of course our intent is to create great cheese.  However, like everything on Nature's Harmony Farm, our goal is to foster symbiotic relationships and ensure that there is no waste.   Approximately 10% of the milk is actually used to make cheese, with the remaining 90% expelled as whey.  While our customers eagerly await the delicious cheeses, our heritage Ossabaw and Large Black pigs anxiously await the whey. We capture and deliver the whey to them after each cheese making, completing a beautiful cycle of:

• sun, soil and rain growing grass,
• cow harvesting grass,
• farmers harvesting milk, 
• cheesemakers making cheese,
• farmers harvesting whey;
• pigs consuming organic whey from grassfed cows; and, finally,
• cows fertilzing old paddocks and harvesting grass from new paddocks.

The cycle is beautiful and complete.

Facts about our cheese

• All made on-farm;
• 100% raw milk from Jersey cows;
• Based on European traditions;
• Hand-made, small batches;
• 100% rBST free-milk (no added Bovine Growth-Hormone, of course!);
• We do not use antibiotics on our cows at any time for any reason;
• Our cows are on pasture 100% of the time, in ALL seasons; and,
• All whey used on farm as feed for woodlot raised pigs.

Commitment to Local

We do not plan ship our cheese. If you want to try it, you'll need to come to the farm or be near one of our delivery points in north Georgia.  This is consistent with our values and how we offer our other products. We do hope you can visit us or enjoy our cheeses if you're within reasonable driving distance to us.