Keeping Organized: The Homesteading Monthly Schedule
KEEPING ON TRACK WITH DAILY, WEEKLY & MONTHLY SCHEDULES
On a homestead, as with any household, a schedule and organization are key to keeping all things, and people, flowing in unison and helps reduce stress, as well as having to deal with unexpected turbulence when life throws you a curve ball.
Keep in mind the list I have composed below is based on my geographical area and zone for planting/ harvesting; but I know most homesteaders keep a yearly to-do list with their monthly goals, chores and must-do's to keep their homestead functioning and moving forward.
It's NOT All Fun & Games
As @mericanhomestead said in one of his recent posts about how we don't have to worry about FARMVILLE requests it struck a note in my head and the BELL went off.
No, we don't have time to play homesteader, because it's not a game. It's real life.
While others who play online games about stockpiling hay for the winter, making sure your farm animals and livestock are fed and milked or growing your fruits and vegetables, we, the true homesteaders and gardeners, are doing this every day (unless Ma Nature tosses a thunderstorm in the mix). But if it were to rain for days on end, we find other chores to do; whether inside the house or in the shed/barn/corn crib/etc. We just don't switch off the button and go back to the game when we feel like it or when the rain has stopped.
If the temperature outside is hovering around -30 degrees with the wind chill, no matter, we still have to go outside and feed the livestock. We have to make sure their water is NOT frozen and that they have enough warm bedding. Oh yeah... don't forget to collect the eggs! No swipe of the finger makes this happen.
My Monthly Schedule
Again, keep in mind a few facts here. I live in the USDA Zone 6b, have a short growing and gardening season and I only have about 1/3 acre of land. Some of my fellow steemit homesteader friends have more acreage and live in a different geographical area so schedules and harvest time frames will vary. This is just a taste of how my year looks; then when you toss in the extra spontaneous chores, events and happenings, things can tend to get a little crazy.
January & February
- Finalize my herb and vegetable garden plan
- Check all my supplies
- Replace or fix any broken tools
- Check small container and buckets for repair or replacement
- Finalize my seed order for the upcoming season
March & April
- Get all my seed starters, peat pods and trays ready
- Clean flower beds and garden areas outside once the snow melts
- Start getting seeds going indoors
- Make repairs to greenhouse when setting back up
- Uncover all the beds and start letting the ground warm up
- Weed out any unknown plants
- Make sure all containers and buckets are clean
May, June & July
- Start moving all seedlings outside to the greenhouse
- Transplant seedlings into the ground
- Add more soil to beds and check pH of soil
- Start imagining in your head where ALL these seedlings are going to go
- Start adding tomato cages to growing transplants
- Berry time here- start preserving jams and jellies
August & September
- Start harvesting
- Start preserving
- Start dehydrating
- Start adding new seeds to the existing crops for a second harvest (ie. spinach, basil, potatoes, other greens and herbs)
October, November & December
- Bring in final harvest from summer plants
- Plant onions and garlic for next year
- Start tearing out all plants
- Make a list of what changes need to be made for next year
- Inventory what seeds you are running low on now; wait too long and you will forget
- Bring container plants indoors that you want to keep and continue to grow
- Clean and start putting away empty containers
- Repeat and rinse
Now as you can see all of my chores are geared around plants. I don't have chickens or livestock. So the homesteaders that do raise animals have MANY, MANY more chores to do. And many more hours spent completing these tasks. I bow to them and salute them with a high five
I know I am missing some but this in a nutshell is my yearly MUST DO list. I continue to add more as the year goes by and as I learn from my mistakes.
How about you? What's your schedule look like?
Gosh, I wish we DID have phone notifications about jobs, stock and inventory. That would make life a little easier! ha!
Great looking schedule. I really need to sit down and plan out my own, including lists of various seed varieties I want to try next year.
Yes I made that mistake with seeds this past year. I thought I had bought more chamomile... I thought I had Roman... but in reality I needed German Chamomile. So now I keep a detailed inventory list in my gardening journal folder. Now I have over 2k Roman Chamomile and only about 100 German.
Yes it would be nice if a notification dinged when we needed to do something lol
It really would! Would be nice to just sell stuff with the tap of a button too. LOL.
List is bang on for here too, only with chicken chores mixed in! This is our first year with the greenhouse in the spring, I am looking forward to not hardening off 3000 seedlings by carrying them from inside to out every day for a week haha!!
YES! the greenhouse was a lifesaver for hardening of plants!
It also gave me more space to have more herbs during the summer months. I absolutely don't know how I got through a season without a greenhouse before.
Wow! That is quite a schedule and totally hilarious to compare it to a game. Too bad you can't just sit on the couch, swipe your finger and have it all done. :) We live in Panama and just started planting stuff. Panama is different than most places in the US. We have been here about 7 months and are just getting started by planting every seed that we get from the food we eat. I just planted 11 avocado trees and a lot of tomato seeds and pepper seeds the other day. Not sure exactly what all else we have. Oranges, lemons and blackberries grow here in our neighborhood as well as bananas. This is my post about it. :) Your schedule looks so well planned out - I can see you spent a lot of time figuring things out. I know that has to help things go more smoothly. Thanks for this post - it helps put into perspective the farming industry! :)
Yeah I know! Swipe once for tomatoes to be picked, swipe twice to pull the weeds... a third time for ALL my salsa and marinara sauce to be preserved! Oh what a life!
AVOCADO!!! I love them... but can't find the correct variety that can survive in my zone. I have the list of the varieties but no luck finding them.
One thing about me... I have major OCD going on - lol
Lol! I don't actually know what would grow around here so I'm just trying every seed I get my hands on. I figure most of it is local fruit so it probably will do well. I know apples are imported, so that probably wouldn't grow. I like the swiping twice to pull weeds. That is something I just can't convince myself to do. :)
This is a great post! Unlike a day job which you plan for a day or coming vacation. Farming is so different, and so much rewarding when you harvest. Thank you for sharing!
I have slowly transformed my garden to perennial or self-perpetuated plants so I don't need to think about when to plant nowadays. We live in Zone 10A. It's warm enough that plants can grow and be harvested year-round so storage of food is not necessary. We do freeze mangos and bananas when they are so abundant that we can't possibly eat them all at once. :-)
ooohhh, zone 10a! I am envious!
I can only imagine the vegetables, fruit trees and perennials I could have!
have you ever tried to dehydrate mangoes? They are SUPER delicious!
I bought a bunch earlier this year and we couldn't eat them all so I dehydrated them. So sweet!
Yes that is so true. No vacation time. No days off sick.
When my son was younger and still living at home; he was raising chickens. We had at any given time about 150-200. He would go away for the night to stay at a friends' house and I was responsible for taking care of them while he was gone... it was a LOT of work. But rewarding just the same.
I hear you. We had chickens, ducks, and quails for a few years. Someone always has to be home to care for them in the morning and in the evening. However, it was very rewarding that we get to eat the freshest eggs!
Nothing better than some scrambled eggs fresh from the coop- lol
Yes I will have to get my garden journal going this next season. I will hopefully be able to get a small garden in next year.
Thank you for sharing your annual agenda for looking after your homestead, very well organized.
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thank you for stopping by and commenting!
Yes I tend to lean towards lists and being organized
You're welcome. It was a pleasure, I like to meet people who are like me, organized.
Nice organization, clear indication that you care too much. Remember that plants drown in too much water.
You could dodge that by watering the plants once and then only focusing on other gardening & homesteading things till they need the water.
Anyway, I like how organized you are Goldy.
Yeah, yeah... the overwatering of plants and salvaging my lemon balm plant inside is a sore subject- you just had to go there! lol
Yes, organization is key for me. I need the discipline. But I'll have you know, I have slowed down on the watering. Some days I have to really use my willpower and remind myself NOT to water the plants inside. Success so far! The lemon balm is growing much better and has some new growth and leaves developing.
Sounds good.
I want to smoke some really fine grown and fermented lemon haze now and watch the stars.
You always remind me of weed.
lol- I must emit off an aura through the internet waves geared in your direction that makes you crave it.
Maybe that is possible? Who the fuck knows.
Having a schedule like that makes so much sense. I think I'll keep a farm journal once we get that far and have a master list that I can add to from year to year.
My journal has all my past garden plans in it and all the do's and don't's, my mistakes and detailed info about companion planting. It's like my Bible. I recommend having one. If not, you'll be wondering... what did I do wrong last year? What did I want to change?
Very good article! Thank you for sharing! Who has time for video games when you are Homesteading?! Doh! Gotta go get the raised bed covered, expecting frost! God Bless!