Garden Calendar

Monthly Garden Calendar

Month by Month in the Organic Garden
You can now access the gardening tips for each month of the year! If your climate doesn’t match what is listed, go forward or back a month…

How many times have you sat in your living room sweating your brains out wondering why the air conditioner is not working very well, only to make a check of things and realized that the filter had not been changed since… I forget how long? That is actually how this list started. Raising three children on my own, working more than full time, keeping up a house, getting dinner on the table, and attempting to keep an exercise routine going… I thought, a house upkeep chart, yeah!, that’s a great idea! That idea bubbled over into the garden as it grew and its attendant responsibilities mounted higher and higher.

Over the years, usually while lamenting something that didn’t get accomplished that year I have kept a continually updated list of gardening chores. While some things are clearly obvious, some get forgotten; filed on a mental rolodex that never gets pulled up. You know those, “Oh yeah! I gotta remember to do that!” moments you get when you see that same pile of junk that needs emptied on the side of the fence? Or worse, when you pull out those shears to clean up some infestation of aphids in the green house and they are dirty and have rust starting from the last time you meant to clean them up?

gone gardening

How to Use a Monthly Gardening Calendar

When using a monthly garden calendar there is built in flexibility dealing with what nature has in store for the year. Tying a task to a single date, as any gardener knows, is impossible… what if the ground is still too cold? What if it is still too wet? So too, if you know the task is coming up and the weather is favorable or the ground is right the week or two before you ‘plan’ to work on it, you can review the month’s list and make your decision based on your specific circumstances. I have tried to group things according to the month based on my monthly gardening zone, this way, based on YOUR zone, you can move forward or back, accordingly.

And please, PLEASE! don’t let all the talk of chores, tasks, calendars, or deadlines dissuade you from gardening or intimidate you. The purpose is to HELP you… to make getting things done just a bit more organized and LESS difficult to keep done. If it is in your character to take things TOO seriously, relax! Gardening should be fun (mostly!) and your garden reflects you… it is a good way to be yourself.

In the spirit of gardening fellowship I share this never completely completed calendar of gardening tasks with you. Some things may have no bearing on your garden, your calendar, your life. You may not find some of the things that need to be done listed here. In that case, I welcome you to share them with us via the homestead blog or by email.

The Ready Store
"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease" ~ Thomas Jefferson