Succession Planting Calendar For Continuous Harvest

Stay productive throughout the season and reduce waste with succession planting, which staggers planting to give your kitchen access to fresh food from spring through fall.

Succession planting requires planning and patience – but its rewards make it well worth your while. Begin by researching your desired crops’ maturation periods using gardening catalogs or websites.

Spring

Early spring is an ideal time for planting cool-season vegetables such as peas, lettuce, radishes and carrots. As the season unfolds, succession planting becomes crucial to ensure an uninterrupted harvest from spring into summer – this method mimics how forests develop; older trees mature over time before eventually falling or being burnt by fire and being replaced by younger seedlings with steady new growth.

Succession planting is particularly useful for flower growers as it ensures an ongoing supply of fresh cut flowers throughout the season. Each variety has an optimal lifespan as a production plant, so by staggered planting different varieties the gardener can reap regular harvests without their plants becoming fatigued or stressed out during production.

Idealy, gardeners should compile a list of suggested planting dates for all crops in their growing area and record it on a chart or notebook. This will serve both as record keeping and as a starting point for next year’s plan – leaving room for adjustments based on weather or pest conditions that might impact initial plans.

Meg is an enthusiastic proponent of using a garden journal and has developed an informative chart for planting crops with staggered maturation periods, such as lettuce, beans, corn and squash. Her chart is tailored specifically for her Zone 4 garden but can easily be adjusted for any climate zone or climate zone. As gardeners become accustomed to this style of planning and management they may come to see it as standard practice; eventually even cultivating continuous harvests of various kinds from spring through fall!

Summer

By staggering plantings throughout the growing season, gardeners can transform their gardens into an endless source of harvestable veggies (or flowers or herbs). Succession planting helps maximize space utilization while improving soil health by minimizing nutrient depletion. It also allows gardeners to reduce pesticide spray use while still effectively controlling pests.

Staggering sowings of the same crop to ensure an uninterrupted harvest throughout summer is key. After your radishes and spinach harvest is complete, plant quick-growing salad greens to fill in any gaps left by their absence. When cucumbers start becoming vulnerable to bacterial wilt, plant another hill of seeds in that bed so you’ll always have fresh cucumbers available for picking!

Staying on top of your garden requires constant monitoring. By recording planting dates in a calendar or garden journal, it allows you to make adjustments as the seasons pass based on changes in weather, temperature, sun exposure, crop ripening time and other factors that affect them. Quick-growing veggies such as herbs can fill in between longer-season plants for increased production all season long.

Replanting can bring several advantages, particularly to plants with long growing seasons like leafy greens, annual herbs and root vegetables. Replanting keeps these fast-growing crops producing at full force while protecting them from bolting or becoming bitter; additionally it minimizes weeds competing for water and nutrients with their original plantings, making your garden healthier and more productive overall.

As part of succession planting, it is vital to research the cultural requirements and varietal characteristics of each vegetable or herb you want to grow. You can do this through consulting gardening books, magazines, online resources or seed packages for information such as when early crops can be planted out or how long it takes them to mature – this information will give a good indication as to when certain crops can be planted, when maturity can occur, if heat or frost resistance may be an issue and help create an efficient planting schedule in your garden. By keeping all this information in mind it makes planning successful planting schedules much simpler!

Winter

Successful winter planting requires selecting short-season crops that will ripen before the dark, frosty, and cold period of the year (Persephone Period). Planting multiple batches of leafy greens, annual herbs and root vegetables as succession planting in fall or winter is key to increasing harvests.

Building a garden map, diagram or planting plan will help you fine-tune your timing and keep tabs on progress and weather to ensure your crop plan goes according to plan. Begin with an initial simple diagram; as your confidence increases you can add more details.

Target planting quick maturing crops like arugula, lettuce, spinach and kale every 14 days during spring sowing. Sow beans every 4-6 weeks during the summer planting peas every 2 weeks while sowing potatoes and winter squash twice and planting peppers and eggplants once.

This method is ideal for all gardeners with limited space who wish to maximize yield in less space and avoid harvest overload and waste by producing more flowers with each planting cycle. Furthermore, flower farmers who want to maximize cut flower production can utilize this strategy by maintaining blooming plants throughout their growing seasons.