I consider myself organized… in a slightly chaotic way.

I know exactly where everything is on my desk, even though to the untrained eye it looks like a series of very intentional piles.

Deadlines? In my head.

Tasks and projects? Also in my head.

And somehow, through a combination of luck, muscle memory, and mild panic, I’ve been surprisingly good at not forgetting them so far.

I try to back it all up with Google Calendar reminders, but let’s be honest: there is plenty of room for improvement.

Steve, on the other hand, is the poster child for methodical organization.

Thanks in part to his military background (former battalion XO, for those keeping score), he likes to step back, look at the big picture, design a system, and then break everything down into tasks.

It’s efficient.

It’s logical.

It also feels painfully slow to my impatient brain, even though, in reality, it probably saves time. (Annoying.)

Every January at our Cape May flower farm, I tell myself this will be the year I finally get truly organized with sowing and planting schedules.

I’ve tried Google spreadsheets, digital calendars, iPad apps, notebooks, color-coded pens… you name it.

And every year, I’m fully committed … for a few weeks.

Then the season ramps up, my hands are too dirty to grab my phone, I’m outside half the day, and chaos quietly reclaims its territory.

So this year, I tried something different.

I bought a very large paper monthly calendar.

Like… unapologetically big.

I learned that Lisa Mason-Ziegler, a wildly popular, no-nonsense flower farmer, has been using this exact system for decades with great success.

That was enough to convince me.

This is my final attempt before fully surrendering to Steve’s system.

I don’t know why I resist it so much.

Maybe because once I give in, I have to admit he’s been right all along, and I’m not emotionally prepared for that just yet.

I’m writing out all my sowing information for the entire year and hanging it in my design studio where it’s visible, accessible, and easy to update.

No passwords.

No syncing.

No dead batteries.

Just me, a pen, and a very honest calendar staring back at me.

And that organized chaos I’m talking about?

It’s basically the operating system of a small flower farm.

Every bouquet, flower subscription, wedding arrangement, and U-Pick event starts its life as a scribble on a calendar, when seeds get sown, when trays get bumped up, when beds get planted, and when I’m politely asking the flowers to bloom on schedule.

Miss a window and you don’t just miss a task, you miss an entire season.

So while things may look a little improvised from the outside, there’s actually a whole lot of quiet planning (and calendar staring) happening behind the scenes to make sure tulips arrive in spring, ranunculus doesn’t jump the gun, and your seasonal bouquets show up exactly when they should.

This kind of planning is what allows us to offer locally grown seasonal flowers, wedding flowers in Cape May, and flower subscriptions that truly reflect the rhythms of the season—rather than forcing flowers to perform on demand.

Steve is, of course, deeply dubious of this plan.

But fingers crossed… I think this one might actually work.

I’ve also been watching all the social media posts about home organization, purging, and “resetting” spaces.

Winter is my season to get things back to some semblance of sanity before the growing season explodes – reassess, purge, repeat.

How about you?

How do you organize your stuff?

Have you found anything especially helpful for small spaces, especially the kitchen?

If you’ve got a system you swear by, I’d love to hear it.

Vegetable Garden Update

A quick note on what I winter-sowed for our vegetable garden.

Everything was sown using the winter-sowing method (soil in small plastic containers with drainage holes, seeds sprinkled in, a tiny vent hole on top, then parked outdoors until germination):

  • Onions
  • Kale (yes, I somehow forgot this on my original list)
  • Lettuce
  • Korean radish
  • Cabbage

Now we wait… patiently-ish.