Growing and Harvesting a Cottage Garden | Planting, Building & Putting Up the First Harvest

After recovering from a ten-day illness, the hosts returned to their homestead chores to harvest onions, arrange flowers, and process goat milk.

• Recovery status — Both individuals spent roughly ten days dealing with a severe, cold-like virus, causing a backlog of work that they are now managing [14:44].
• Onion harvest — This year yielded the best crop yet, attributed to planting in raised mounds and applying fertilizer to the divots [18:39].
• Flower arrangement — To keep bouquets upright and airy, they now use filler flowers like feverfew and insert chicken wire into vases for structural support [26:23].
• Goat milk pasteurization — The process involves using an Instant Pot to heat the milk to 165°F, followed by rapid cooling using a KitchenAid ice cream bowl attachment to bypass expensive machinery [22:01].
• Garden pests — Free-roaming chickens are currently eating the strawberries, creating a challenge for harvesting a second crop [10:49].

• How is the Instant Pot used during the milk pasteurization process?
• What techniques improve the structural integrity of the floral arrangements?