The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner

Author and Wisconsin homesteader Ann Larkin Hansen compiled this homesteading planner that outlines the seasonal chores needed to maintain a healthy and productive, garden, orchard, woodlot, beeyard, and farmstead.

"Doing a thing in its proper season - when it would naturally occur, or when conditions make the job most efficient and comfortable - is how you spread the work more evenly through the year," she explains. "This is what makes it possible to get it all done and still have some leisure time."

Her planner is divided by seasons, beginning with Midwinter and Late Winter and continuing through to Early Fall and Early Winter of the same calendar year. Suggested chores and priorities are presented in each time period along with tips and primers on weaning animals, constructing wetland crossings, butchering chickens, drying herbs, mulching, planting a garden, and more.

Hansen's planner is biased toward the northern tier of North America, of course, and every rural acreage and rural landowner will have different needs, but its advice is general enough to be practical and informative for most homesteaders.