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| March seedlings |
A key strategy to getting the most out of your garden space and harvests is to practice succession planting. Make it a goal to never have an empty spot in your garden or pot. Be ready as soon as you harvest one plant or crop to fill the space with its replacement. When you do plant, don't plant all at once so that your plants come to maturity one after another versus all at once. And plant different varieties with different maturity dates. All these strategies will significantly boost how much your garden gives you!
Planning is key. You will need to lay out your garden bed by each season so you can see what you need when. There are crops that thrive in cool weather Spring edible garden and those that thrive in hot summers A summer edible garden . Have a plan for what you want in your spring garden, lay it out in your journal with a sketch of your garden and where each plant will go. Do the same for your summer garden.
Every fall, I put together my spring/summer garden plan so I remember what did well, what I need more or less of. Reflections on the 2023 edible garden and plans for 2024 In the spring, I revisit the plan to finalize what seeds I will start. There are always some additions from the interesting varieties I see in the new seed catalogs! My 2024 Edible Garden Plan
For my spring and summer garden, I do a combination of starting from seed and buying transplants. Buying transplants speeds up getting my first harvests while I start seeds at the same time as I plant out the transplants. I want spring salads as soon as I can get them!
As soon as the cool season crops like lettuce, beets, spinach, radishes and carrots are spent, it will be time to replace them with warm season crops like beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and squash. You can start your plants from seed or buy transplants. If starting from seed, you will stagger when you start each vegetable so that they mature at different times.
You can get the same effect as succession planting with planting different varieties of the same vegetable that mature at different times. Look on the seed packet or transplant tag for "Days to Harvest". Buy varieties that mature sooner and those that mature later. You don't want 50 heads of lettuce all ready in the same week.
I am taking it one step further this gardening season by also growing tomatoes that store well.
It is a really good idea to plant an early and late crop of things that are susceptible to disease like tomatoes and summer squash. When the early plants are winding down and not producing at their peak, the later plants will be coming on strong.
Here is a list of succession planning by vegetable for continuous harvests:
Basil-21 days apart
Beets-every two weeks
Bush Beans-every two weeks
Pole Beans-give continuous harvests naturally
Broccoli-best accomplished by planting types with different maturity dates
Cabbage-best accomplished by planting types with different maturity dates
Carrots-every 2 weeks
Cauliflower-best accomplished by planting types with different maturity dates
Chard-give continuous harvests naturally
Cilantro-every 7 days and plant heat tolerant varieties starting in May
Corn-best accomplished by planting types with different maturity dates
Cucumbers-once after last frost and then 2 months later
Dill-every 14 days if you use a lot
Eggplant-give continuous harvests naturally
Lettuce-every two weeks (be sure to switch to heat tolerant varieties a month after your last frost)
Melons-21 days apart
Parsley-every 14 days if you use a lot
Peppers-give continuous harvests naturally
Radishes-every week
Spinach-every two weeks until last frost, plant heat tolerant starting in May
Summer squash (like zucchini)-once after last frost and then 2 months later
Tomatoes-30 days apart; indeterminate varieties give continuous harvests naturally
Turnips-every 14 days
Another thing to keep in mind is how much a plant produces. Some vegetable plants will give you continuous harvests and some will give you only one or two vegetables (like corn). Dwarfs are also a great idea for small garden spaces and containers. Here is more on maximizing harvests: This year's garden plan and How do you decide what to plant for small spaces??
I strive to do well with succession planting, but I don't achieve the optimal. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason is that I plant too much initially. When seed starting, it is typical to sow more than one seed for each plant and then to pinch off the smaller one. I have a very hard time doing this. Instead, I will gently remove one of the seedlings and transplant it into its own pot. Now, I have twice as much as I planned for each. The second biggest reason is that there are so many interesting varieties of seeds you can buy these days. I always put together a plan at the end of the season for what I am going to plant next season, including the number of plants needed. Then, the spring seed catalogs come along and I see varieties I just can't pass up.
This year, I am going to try again to get better at succession planting. My new strategy is to plant one new edible each week. I'll start with the plan I outlines last year on the basics needed to get started. After getting these seedlings growing, I will allow myself one new edible each week to start. Perhaps giving myself a reward weekly versus instant gratification at the beginning of the season will be enough to bump up my succession planting game.
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