Often
it seems like all of the vegetables in the garden are ready to harvest all at
once. If, like many gardeners, you
plant most of your crops once, this is true.
Many crops harvest over a relatively small window – often a matter of
several weeks – and that crop is done. Succession planting is a technique that will
extend your harvest over a longer season, ensuring a steady harvest and helping
you to avoid being overwhelmed by any one crop.
Succession
planting involves planting more than one crop in the garden and can take
several forms. You can build a
succession around different crops over a season, multiple plantings of the same
crop, or growing different crops simultaneously.
Our
long growing seasons are ideal for growing different crops in succession. For instance, garden peas planted in early
February will be ready for harvest by mid-April. After harvesting for several weeks, the vines
will be played out. At this point, they
can be pulled from the garden and you can replace them with a planting of a
summer crop such as tomato, eggplant or pepper.
Early planted potatoes can be harvested in June and followed by a late
crop of field peas or bush beans. Summer
crops can be replaced in the fall with a fall planting of garlic, onions or
greens (such as turnips or Swiss chard).
You
can also create different successions of the same crop by either staggering
your planting or by choosing early, mid and late season varieties of the same
crop. For instance, the same variety of garden
peas can be planted at two to three week intervals during the spring. This will result in the first planting coming
in to harvest first, followed in succession by later plantings. This technique is particularly suitable for
quick growing crops such as radishes, leaf lettuce, and spinach. Another is option is to chose several
varieties with differing days to maturity.
When planting on the same day, these varieties will come in to harvest
at different times. For instance, a
planting of three varieties – Sugar Bon (56 days to maturity), Super Sugar Snap
(64 days) and Sugar Heart (75-80 days) – would extend your sugar snap pea
harvest over a longer window than a single variety would.
Variety
selection plays an important role in other ways as well. Different varieties have different growth
habits. Most gardeners are familiar with
determinant and indeterminant tomatoes.
Determinant varieties set most of their fruit in a short period of time. These varieties are a good choice for
succession plantings. Indeterminant
varieties set fruit over a much longer window, so you may choose to plant them
just once.
Interplanting
more than one crop is another succession planting strategy. In this instance, crops with different
growing requirements or maturity rates are planted in the same bed. For instance, lettuce can be grown under
trellised tomatoes – maximizing the yield per unit area in the bed. Other intercropping options include leaf lettuce
with kale and the traditional “Three Sisters” combination of corn, beans and
squash. Another intercrop technique
involves planting closely and thinning the crop for use as it matures. Some vegetables including carrots, beets and
lettuces make good “baby vegetables”.
Start thinning before the seedlings’ leaf canopies over lap and use the
small, tender vegetables in the kitchen as a tasty change from their more
mature counterparts.
A
planting chart is a great way to estimate your planting and harvest dates. Use the days to maturity from the chart or
your vegetable seed packet to estimate the harvest date. Choose a planting chart that is targeted to
the NC Coastal Plain such as this one: http://pender.ces.ncsu.edu/files/library/71/VegPlantingGuide.pdf.