Succession Planting
The benefit of succession planting is the guarantee you’ll continually produce a supply of the “easy crops”. It’s great for gardeners who want to grow and harvest continuously throughout the season.
The concept of succession planting can be broken down into three main techniques to ensure your success.
Pull Some, Plant Some
As soon as plants are ready to harvest pull them out and replant. It’s as simple as that: harvest (pull the bolted plants). Then aerate the soil and replenish nutrients by forking in some compost or Ancient Soil and planting another plant.
Remember The Sun
When planting in the heat of summer, it's important to keep the soil surface consistently moist. If the soil were to dry out, you may run into the risk of newly sprouted seeds dying and having to start the process again.
A general rule is that seeds planted outdoors in late summer should be sown twice as deep as when you planted them in the spring.
Planting The Right Crops
Plants that thrive in cool weather include lettuce, spinach and arugula, carrots, beets, broccoli, Swiss chard, kale, and all kinds of Asian greens, and these plants are perfect to choose when succession planting. They do very well at the end of the harvest season when temperatures may drop more than some plants are happy with.
Make sure to also choose disease-resistant varieties that mature quickly. You don’t want to do all this work for nothing!
I made this chart below as an easy reference guide. Remember to plan out your harvest cycle so when you harvest you can go ahead and throw in what works best. Start with the crops that need a longer maturity level to ensure that they reach maturity before the first frost date.
Sow Every 1-2 Weeks
Plant Up To
Baby Lettuce
4 weeks before first frost
Radish
4 weeks before first frost
Salad Mix
4 weeks before first frost
Spinach
6 weeks before first frost
Bok Choy
6 weeks before first frost
Full Head Lettuce
8 weeks before first frost
Bush Beans
8 weeks before first frost
Peas
8 weeks before first frost
Sow Every 2 Weeks
Plant Up To
Arugula
6 weeks before first frost
Turnip
6 weeks before first frost
Beets
8 weeks before first frost
Rutabaga
10 weeks before first frost
Corn
10 weeks before first frost
Sow Every 3-4 Weeks
Plant Up To
Kale
6 weeks before first frost
Collard Green
6 weeks before first frost
Carrots
8 weeks before first frost
Cucumbers
10 weeks before first frost
Sow Every 4-6 Weeks
Plant Up To
Summer Squash
8 weeks before first frost
Swiss Chard
10 weeks before first frost
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