Garden Succession Planting – Planning For Continuous Harvest Throughout the Season
Are you looking to extend the harvest season of your favourite vegetables and fruits by succession planting? Succession planting could be your solution!
Rotation allows you to spread out plant blooming times and avoid sudden bursts of blooming that lead to feast or famine in your garden, as well as keeping pests and diseases at bay by moving crops around.
Optimizing space utilization in small gardens is another reason to use container gardening techniques, so here are a few tips that may help get you underway.
Choose Your Crops Wisely
Many gardeners recognize succession planting’s value for keeping vegetable production flowing throughout the summer while making better use of your gardening space and increasing yields, improving soil health. But getting started can take time and planning; here are a few tips to get you underway.
At the core of succession planning is selecting crops you wish to grow and then determining their “days to maturity”. While this varies between crops, most vegetables offer day-to-maturity calculators on their websites, so you can begin creating an action plan based on this knowledge.
Start planning by drawing up a map of each garden bed. Consider what might go into planting in each bed from spring through to summer and fall; as your crops mature, plant something suitable alongside them to maintain an orchestrated harvest sequence across your entire garden.
Remember to rotate crops grown for their roots or seeds, such as carrots and radishes, with those with leaves or flowers, such as cilantro. As cilantro can easily go to seed quickly, so replant it regularly to keep taco Tuesdays fresh!
Alternating warm-season and cool-season crops is another effective strategy that will enable you to keep harvesting through most of the summer without experiencing weather spikes. Once peas and other warm-season veggies have finished producing, for instance, cool-weather crops such as kale can take their place.
Plan Ahead
Planning is essential to succession planting success, with proper timing being crucial to harvesting consistently throughout the growing season. Knowing your average frost dates and days until maturity for different crops – information usually found on seed packets – are keys. A typical variety of radishes may take 30 days, while another variety might require 40 or 60. Selecting varieties with differing maturation times enables continuous harvests without having to replant over and over.
Once you know your frost dates and the days to maturity of your crop, creating a succession planting plan should be straightforward. Utilizing either a spreadsheet app or notebook, map out your gardening space with the dates you plan on sowing each vegetable, its expected harvest window, and how many plants of that variety you intend to cultivate. Including special considerations, such as lighting needs or disease/pest resistance, is also helpful when creating this plan.
This process works best with crops that mature quickly without needing much heat, such as radishes, lettuce, and beets. Even during short summers, you can still employ this strategy with other warm-weather vegetables like bush beans and peas; ensure your second succession planting interval occurs three weeks after your initial one so they have time to grow before frost arrives. And if your garden is pushing its limits even further, you could add succession planting intervals of your favourite warm-weather crop while using season extension techniques like greenhouses or cold frames to get through winter successfully!
Keep an Eye on the Weather
As the season advances, you must monitor both weather and growing conditions. If a planting doesn’t do according to plan or harvesting occurs sooner than anticipated, adapt your strategy accordingly – whether it means shifting the timing of the next sowing interval or adding backup plans just in case something goes wrong with the original crop plan.
More succession planting practice means better results; over time, you will become adept at tailoring a plan that best fits your space and tastes. Succession planting also allows one to experiment with various varieties while learning their characteristics in a natural garden setting.
Another advantage of this method is its ability to avoid “feast “or famine” situations in your garden. By staggering your plantings, you can ensure a continuous harvest of certain crops throughout the season. For instance, by growing various salad greens such as arugula, baby kale, mustard greens and lettuce, you’ll have an ample supply throughout the summer!
This method makes cultivating longer-growing plants like tomatoes, peppers, and squash easier by interspersing slower-growing ones – providing these long-growing vegetables the space they require without impacting harvest windows too much.
At the start of every gardening season, creating a basic sowing schedule is wise. A spreadsheet app or notebook is an excellent way to stay organized and on top of your plans. Be sure to include details like suggested planting dates, days to maturity, spacing requirements for crops, etc, in this plan for maximum success and realistic planning.
Keep an Eye on Pests and Diseases
As well as increasing yield and producing fresher produce, succession planting helps extend the growing season in colder climates where summer can be short. Push beyond these boundaries using hoops, mulch, or cold frames to expand production into fall and winter!
Staggered planting can also extend your season. Instead of sowing all radishes at once, plant three varieties that mature at various times to have a steady supply throughout the season. This approach works great with vegetables requiring different amounts of time (such as kale, broccoli and squash). It makes harvesting regular supplies much more straightforward for beginners or anyone struggling to keep up with regular planting schedules.
Staggered planting can also help protect crops that bloom at different times, like sunflowers. Doing this helps avoid “feast “or famine” situations in the garden, where everything blooms and then rapidly dies off again. Staggering planting also offers benefits when preserving any produce, as it reduces the risk of any succession being lost due to weather or pests.
Success with succession sowing relies on understanding your climate, available space, and food preferences. While creating an optimal sowing schedule that meets these criteria simultaneously may be challenging, with some work and dedication, you’ll have a steady supply of fresh veggies all season long! Keep track of your experiences each year to refine and perfect your plan; this endeavour will become more accessible and rewarding with time!
Don’t BDon’taid to Make Changes
Gardeners know the joy of planting vegetables each spring and tending to them until harvest time arrives, then enjoying summer eating their harvest while hoping there will be more to come. But is there a way to extend this delicious vegetable-eating season further? That is where succession planting comes into play!
Succession planting is a gardening technique involving staggered seed sowing to ensure an ongoing harvest throughout the garden. While it can be applied to any vegetable, succession planting is particularly effective at producing fast-growing varieties that require frequent reseeding. Succession planting also allows gardens to maximize space utilization while prolonging growing seasons.
As your first step, create a schedule of when and how often to plant and harvest using a calendar or diagramming the garden plots/raised beds. Take notes and write down when each crop will reach maturity using the information on its seed packet or simply counting back from your average first frost date to decide when sowing begins.
Once your schedule is in place, keep a close eye on weather and soil temperature conditions so that sowing occurs at its optimal time. Since exact planting dates cannot always be achieved, multiple successions should be planned into your schedule as a backup plan should something go awry!
If succession planting is new to you, it can initially seem intimidating. With careful planning and patience, succession planting can reap great rewards in any garden – don’t be intimidated to try it, and you may soon enjoy fresh, homegrown vegetables all year!