After I wrote the title for this post, I wondered, do people even know what 411 stands for anymore? Should I have called it the Google on Succession Planting? Man, technology makes me feel old sometimes.
Anyway, moving on. Succession planting–do you do it? If you don’t, you totally should. It gives you a continuous crop of your favorite veggies, without overloading you with one massive harvest.
In case you don’t know, succession planting is basically just staggering when you plant the same thing {instead of putting it all in the ground at once} to ensure that your harvest time will be staggered as well. Does that make sense? Sometimes I feel like I am just mumbling through the computer? Let me give an example, instead of having 5 ripe cantaloupes all at once, you stagger your planting, and have 2-3 for several weeks in a row. It requires you to leave some empty space in your garden and plan ahead, but it is totally worth it.
If you’re interested in trying, here a basis succession planting schedule:
Green Beans – Plant every 10 days
Beets – Plant every 14 days
Cucumbers – Plants every 3 weeks
Kale/Colloards – Plant every 3 weeks
Lettuce – Plant every 10-14 days {this is my favorite thing for succession planting. It’s impossible to eat it all at once, so having different types of lettuce that will produce every couple of weeks is perfect}.
Melons – Plant every 3 weeks
Radish – Plant every 7 days
Spinach – Plant every 7 days
Summer Squash – plant every 6 weeks
Sweet Corn – Plant every 10 days
Carrots – Plant every 2-3 weeks {as weather allows, stop when it gets too hot and resume in late summer/early fall}
Cauliflower – Plant every 2 weeks {as weather allows, stop when it gets too hot and resume again in late summer/early fall}
Turnips – Plant every 7 Days
Do you already do this? What are your favorite crops to practice succession planting?
~Mavis
Beks says
I should do this with my greens this summer.
Tammy says
Last year we planted green onions this way – my husband is the one who gardens, but it was my suggestion. 😉 I think it was every two weeks. It was nice having them planted this way because it is hard to use up a whole lot of green onions at once! We also do radishes this way, until it gets too hot.
We live in Michigan and what we’ve found for our area is that our green beans produce to the first frost so we really don’t need to do the succession planting. Plus, I’m already tired of canning them by the time the plants are done. Haha….also the same with the cucumbers. By the time the plants are done, so am I with the pickles.
Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden says
We just got our garden planted.. today! We live in Michigan so our seasons are short. I kind of just plant it all at once because sometimes we are lucky if the beans and others things make it. I managed to plant my radishes and leaf lettuce a few weeks ago. We do plant the mustard greens though in August for the fall. So some things are just planted at different times.
katy says
what is ‘too hot’ for carrots? i never know when to stop and start back up in the heat of the summer months (NC, zone 7b)