When you have a homestead, you’ve got more than just a few responsibilities to handle. With so much going on, it’s easy to become unorganized and end up with a lot of clutter. If you’d like to avoid the mess and improve your organizational skills, check out these simple tips on how to stay more organized on a homestead.
It requires a bit of effort initially, but once you get into the swing of things, staying organized will come naturally to you.
Put Labels on Most of Your Belongings
Always take the time to add labels to most of the items you’ll have in the garden and inside the home. If you’re planting different crops on the land, you can keep track of them by using garden markers with the name of each plant. It’s possible to create garden markers using a Cricut machine. If you don’t have the Cricut machine, you can buy garden markers or make them with wood or old popsicle sticks. It all depends on the look you’re trying to achieve in the garden.
If you’re canning, be sure to put labels (I like these dissolvable ones) on the jars that you’re using. You’ll know exactly where to find what you need and plan on using without having to rummage through everything. It’s such a convenient way of staying organized, keeping things in order, and avoiding a massive mess in the home. Sticker labels are perfect for jars used to can different types of fruits, jams, and vegetables.
Use a Garden Planner to Keep Track of Important Information
Invest in a garden planner or create one of your own using a notebook with hundreds of blank pages. The purpose of the organizer is to keep track of everything going on in your garden. If you don’t want to forget about essential things, you’ll create this gardener to remind you of what needs to get done and how often you’ll need to do it.
When to Plant
Use your garden planner to create a list of the different crops you’d like to grow. You can set dates for when you’d like to start planting them based on the season, availability of seeds, and other factors.
Make sure to see my Month to Month Guide to Vegetable Gardening.
When to Water
Creating a watering schedule for each crop is a must. Some crops will need to get watered more often than others. You wouldn’t want to mix things up and add too much water to certain plants because that could destroy them. If you have a garden organizer, you won’t have to worry about that at all.
9 Ways to Conserve Water in Your Vegetable Garden
When to Add Compost
Knowing when to add compost to your soil is essential. Choosing the right soil and adding it at the perfect times will help improve the condition of the soil. It will make your plants grow even better. You can create a compost schedule similar to your watering schedule.
How to Compost
10 Things You Never Want to Compost
Kitchen Composting Tips
When to Harvest
Don’t forget to keep track of dates when you think it’ll be best for you to begin harvesting some of your crops. It’s yet another important thing to include in your gardening organizer.
Create a Schedule for Completing Various Tasks
Develop a schedule that allows you to complete different tasks throughout the week. Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to get everything done in a single day. If you have a schedule consisting of a handful of tasks each day of the week, you’ll get more done. And, if you’re getting more done, you’ll have a much easier time staying organized.
Your schedule may include watering crops, getting rid of weeds, canning certain vegetables, and more. Break your homestead responsibilities into simple tasks to handle. When you do it this way, you’ll quickly realize that homesteading is far more enjoyable.
Come Up With a Useful Storage System for Everything
Try to use a storage system to keep organized. There are different ways to store items inside and outside to keep you organized and save you some time.
Get Rid of Boxes and Use Storage Containers
When you buy boxed items, such as cereal and snacks, you can get rid of the boxes and store those items into individual storage containers with labels. Not only does it look neater, but it helps you stay organized and find what you need faster.
Have a Convenient Spot for Gardening Tools
Develop a storage system for all of your gardening tools. Instead of searching for several minutes for a specific tool, you’ll be able to grab it in seconds and begin using it.
Garden Tools Every Backyard Homesteader Should Have
Keep Your Laundry Room in Order
You can even use a storage system in the laundry room. Install different baskets to use for clean clothes and dirty clothes. You might even want to have additional baskets for separating clothes based on colors.
These are only a few of the different ways to use a storage system to your advantage. Try to come up with other ideas based on what you’re storing.
Use Shelving Systems to Store Canned Items
Don’t forget about shelving systems. They’ll come in handy when you want to store all the items you’ve canned. For example, you can place multi-layer storage shelves in the basement of your home. Line your canned items in rows based on the date, making sure you’re using the oldest first before the newest items.
If you use this system, you’ll never need to stress over finding specific canned items. You can head right over to the basement, look at your storage shelves, and find the item you need with its label attached.
An Organized Homestead
Staying organized on a homestead might sound impossible. After all, you’ve got so much going on and so many things to do. However, if you take a few extra steps, you can keep things organized with ease. If you’re currently feeling stressed, use these tips to your advantage. It will become that much easier for you to find what you need when you need it.
Instead of dealing with clutter and driving yourself crazy trying to find things, follow these organizational tips because they’ll make such a difference in your daily life.
What tips would you share about staying organized while homesteading, to keep things running smoothly?
