Garden Planning Resources: Succession Planting

Succession Planting:

Succession gardening is a second or even a third planting of vegetables in mid- to late-season. By planting crops in succession, continuously throughout the season, gardeners can make optimal use of small spaces, short seasons & get more food out of every garden plot.

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Tips:

1. Consider the length of the growing season in your climate: How many more weeks of good weather do you have?
2. Fast growing vegetables such as radishes, broccoli, spinach and lettuce are good candidates for succession sowing. From these crops choose varieties that are quick to mature. 
3.   Rotate your crops:  Put plants from the same family into different beds from the earlier harvest. 
4.     Allow for early frosts: Choose plants that can be eaten young for succession sowing, like beets and carrots, or those that can take a light frost like lettuce or arugula. 
5.     Some crops do best in early spring or prefer cooler weather (e.g. peas). Once they have started dying back, you can pull out the plants, and make room for another crop. 
6.       Be aware of your space. If you want to have several harvests of a specific vegetable, you can seed them close to an existing row, and then when they are harvested, the second planting will have more room to expand.  

Check out this great booklet from Attra: 
or these helpful sites: Burbs & Bees, Urban Planting calendar, Intensive Vegetable Planting