For many gardeners, spring is the busiest time of the year. For some without heated greenhouses, in cold climates this is the first chance to get back in the garden, and they frantically try to make up for lost time. Beds are cultivated and every spare inch is filled with plant starts, either seeds or transplants, often with too little thought about how much is needed of each variety of food crop for the families needs, or ways to extend the harvest of each crop so it does not all mature at the same time. This article covers two types of succession planting, same crop successive planting and the planting of two or more crops in succession.
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When practicing any form of succession planting, it helps to have a planting calendar for the climate zone. These can sometimes be found by doing an internet search on the name of the county and the words ‚”planting calendar”. If a search does not yield results, a planting calendar, or advice can generally be had from the county extension office or universities. If a detailed planting calendar for the area is not available, one can be construct by using data on the first and last frost dates for the area. Most seed companies provide planting guidelines for each variety of plant that can be used, along with frost dates, to determine the planting window for each variety of plant.
The easiest form of succession planting is same crop successive planting. Rather than planting all of one crop at the same time, several smaller plantings are made at timed intervals. Weather and soil temperatures are just two things that influence when vegetables mature, so be aware that staggered plantings do not guarantee that harvests will mature at staggered intervals, but the practice has benefits none the less. There is a good chance more plants will mature at staggered dates, establishing a continuous harvest over an extended period. Even if the weather does not cooperate, this practice offers a good chance of catching the optimal planting time for a large, high quality harvest from at least some of the plantings. To make room for other crops, those plants growing poorly can be removed before maturity.
Common crops for this approach are quick maturing corps like lettuce and other salad greens. These plants are generally planted at two week intervals and quick maturing varieties of longer season crops can be planted at four week intervals. To get a head start on the season for the first planting, other plants are often started in a greenhouse, cold frame, or indoors under lights, three weeks or so before the projected last frost date. The last planting should be done so the crop will mature in advance of the first projected frost date of winter except for crops that tolerates frost.
With this method, after each crop is harvested another is planted in the same space. Once planting times are determined for each cultivar, each section of the garden can be planned to facilitate two or more successive crops to keep the space producing for the entire season. For example, a cool season spring crop can be followed by a heat tolerant summer crop, or a long season crop may be followed by a cool season fall crop.
One aim of succession planting is to try to keep each garden space planted as much of the time as possible. While it’s fine to insert plants wherever there is space, care should always be taken to recondition soil with compost or other organic soil amendments. It is also important not to follow diseased plants immediately with others. It may be necessary to occasionally solarize a section of the garden in summer, or plant a cover crop to be turned in to the soil as green manure to recondition the soil.
This article covered two types of succession planting, same crop successive planting and the planting of two or more crops in succession. There are four basic approaches to succession planting that can, and should be, combined for maximum yields.
Succession Planting Website Accessed August 10, 2010
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