Start Where You Are: How to Cultivate Home This Spring

How to plant seeds of intention—whether in your garden or your daily life.

Last week I started cleaning out my raised beds and my husband brought me home a stack of seed packets from Walmart. I even started looking at seeds at the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. (By the way have you seen their ads this spring – they’re hilarious).

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There’s something about April here in Kentucky. The days get longer, the sunshine starts to stick around (far less gray days), and suddenly I want to clean everything in sight. The pantry. The porch. My wardrobe. My entire house, if we’re being honest.

Cultivating Home this Spring

I love making lists and setting goals but it’s so easy to make lists and never follow through with them. And while to do lists have their place, they can also feel overwhelming if they seem never ending. Especially when I look around and see a house that still has Christmas wrapping paper stuffed behind a closet door (just me?).

But here’s what I’ve learned over the years.

Spring (and spring cleaning) isn’t about perfection.
It’s about beginning again.
It’s about getting down to the work of homemaking with a fresh heart, without feeling like your house needs to be flawless.

Whether you’re planting rows of tomatoes or just trying to keep the laundry under control, you’re cultivating home. It’s those little habits and daily routines that make the biggest difference.

If your life feels a little messy right now, I want you to know something:

You can start where you are. Your house doesn’t have to be spotless for you to start building rhythms that feel peaceful. You can start making room for beauty, even if it’s just a clean corner and a fresh flower in a jar. You can start tending to your family’s needs in a way that feels meaningful—not frantic.

Homemaking is not about catching up. It’s about showing up. It’s about doing the daily maintenance so that you can stay on top of things. Because the truth is, daily maintenance is just part of it.

related: The Purpose 31 Homemaking Bundle

4 Ways to Start Cultivating home this Spring:

#1 Plant a seed.

It doesn’t have to be a full garden. Start small. One pot of herbs on the windowsill. A packet of zinnias tucked into a container by your front steps. Or maybe just a few seeds pressed into soil with your kids—hands dirty, hearts full.

There’s something so special about watching things grow. It’s a quiet reminder that life doesn’t happen all at once. It unfolds, a little each day, with sunlight and care. Just like a home.

If you’ve never planted a thing in your life, try basil. It’s forgiving. And it smells like summer.

related: How to Root Basil Cuttings

Below are some photos I took of flowers at The Met Cloisters in New York City in March 2025.

#2 Create a spring tradition.

Traditions don’t need to be Pinterest-worthy to matter. They just need to be yours.

Maybe you light a candle during breakfast and read a passage of Scripture. Maybe Saturday nights become family game night. Or maybe spring means a picnic in the backyard (or front yard like at my house)—even if it’s peanut butter sandwiches on a blanket in the grass. When my kids were growing up we ate outside every change I could get.

It’s these little moments that anchor your family. They say: this is who we are and this is what we do. And over time, those moments become the story your kids tell when they grow up.

#3 Do one thing to clear the clutter.

It’s tempting to want to overhaul the whole house in a weekend, especially when the spring cleaning bug bites. But one drawer is progress. One bag to donate is victory. One clean kitchen counter can feel like a breath of fresh air.

Start with what’s bugging you most. That one spot that makes you sigh every time you pass by it. Tackle it for 15 minutes. You’ll be amazed what changes in your home—and in you—when you do.

Progress, not perfection. Every time.

And if you are feeling motivated to do a little more, why not try a 3-day Mini Spring Cleaning routine.

#4 Open a window.

Let the fresh air in. Open the curtains. Let the breeze stir the stale air and wake up the quiet corners of your home. And while you’re at it, take five minutes to sit and breathe

As soon as the weather is even a little bit warm you’ll find me throwing open the windows and airing out my house.

We’re lucky here in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky in that we can have our windows open for about 6 months of the year. We run the air maybe 2 months when the humidity creeps in midsummer and then the heat the other 4 months of the year.

Homemaking is more than managing a house.

It’s about tending. The word “tending” comes from the idea of caring for something consistently and thoughtfully so it can grow, heal, or thrive. I have a free printable Monthly Tending List you can download here.

Tending (verb):
To pay attention to and care for someone or something with gentle, ongoing effort.

And like any good garden, a home doesn’t need to be perfect to be beautiful. It just needs someone to nurture it with love and look after it. What a gift it is to get to be the one who does the tending!