Succession Planting: Steady Harvests Instead of All at Once

Plant a whole packet of lettuce in one day and you'll have more salad than you can eat for two weeks, then none at all. Succession planting fixes that. Instead of planting everything at once, you sow a little at a time, or follow one crop with another, so the garden keeps producing all season.

Method 1: Small sowings every few weeks

For fast crops that are best picked young, sow a short row on a regular schedule:

• Radishes: every one to two weeks. They're ready in about four weeks.
• Lettuce and salad greens: every two to three weeks.
• Cilantro: every three weeks. It goes to seed quickly in warm weather.
• Bush beans: every two to three weeks while the planting window is open.

Keep each sowing inside the crop's planting window. In Portland, for example, Rainline Garden's spring window for lettuce runs Mar 1 – Apr 26, with a second fall window of Aug 20 – Sep 3. Bush beans run May 10 – Jun 21, which leaves room for about three sowings. Your own windows are on your planting calendar.

Method 2: Follow one crop with another

When an early crop finishes, plant something new in the same space:

• Peas, then beans. Peas finish as summer warms up, which is when the soil is warm enough for beans.
• Spring lettuce or spinach, then summer squash or cucumbers.
• Garlic, then fall greens. Garlic comes out in early summer. Where your fall windows allow, that bed can hold fall lettuce, kale or turnips.
• Summer crops, then cover crops. When tomatoes and squash are done, sow a winter cover crop.

Method 3: Plant fast crops between slow ones

Radishes sown in the same row as carrots come up quickly, mark the row, and are harvested before the carrots need the space. Lettuce can grow between young tomato or squash plants and be picked before those plants fill in.

Working out the last sowing date

For fall harvests, count back from your first fall frost using the days to maturity on the seed packet, then add about two weeks, because plants grow more slowly as days get shorter and cooler. Rainline Garden's fall windows already do this math for the crops that suit fall planting.

Keep the soil fed

A bed that grows two or three crops a year uses more nutrients. Mix in an inch of compost between crops to keep it productive.

The My garden plan page can help you keep track of what goes in when.