FRESH HARVEST ALL YEAR ROUND
Jane Griffiths shares tips on how to grow your own 12-month supply
Acommon problem faced by gardeners is a surplus of one or two crops. It’s astonishing how many squashes and beans a few plants can produce — and how quickly this becomes overwhelming. There are methods to ensure a continuous harvest of edibles all year round.
SUCCESSION PLANTING
With this method, sowing and planting of crops are staggered, which ensures a constant and steady harvest. This also works for herbs and vegetables that go to seed more quickly than others (particularly in hot weather) such as lettuce, coriander and rocket. These bolt more quickly in midsummer than during winter. By staggering plantings every two to six weeks, a new crop will bear as the first one goes to seed.
HOW TO DO IT
Don’t sow seeds or transplant all your seedlings at once. Keep your seedlings in a sheltered spot. On a weekend, or when you have time, prepare a larger area than required for the day’s planting and mix extra sowing and transplanting mix.
This makes it easier to quickly pop into the garden and sow or transplant a few seeds and seedlings, staggering it over a few weeks.
Use the sun to control harvest. For example, eggplants in full sun will produce fruit earlier than those receiving only morning and early afternoon sun.
When pricking out seedlings from flat seed trays, transplant them into different sized seedling pots. Ones in smaller containers will grow more slowly.
Keep planting records to help you plan.
CONTINUAL HARVEST TIPS
Industrial seed is bred to ripen at the same time so machines can harvest crops all at once. Rather choose open-pollinated, heirloom seeds. These germinate and ripen unevenly, naturally staggering the harvest.
Plant different varieties of the same vegetable, choosing ones with different flavours and varying times to maturity, For example, Chinese cabbage matures in 55 days, Brunswick in 75 days and Savoy in about 90. Even though you are harvesting cabbage continuously, each variety tastes different and lends itself to different styles of cooking. This way you won’t tire of eating the same crop every week.
When a plant is reaching the end of its productive stage, start sowing seeds underneath it. The dappled shade provides a protective moist environment for germination. Within a few weeks, the older plant can be removed, with the next crop already well on its way.
Get to know your plants. Swiss chard, for example, starts bearing from around 55 days and provides a continual harvest for three to six months, so it only needs to be sown every three to four months.
Some crops lend themselves to succession planting and others don’t. Long season crops such as onions and garlic and perennial crops like asparagus and artichokes shouldn’t be succession planted. Plant them once in a dedicated bed and harvest when ready.
OTHER BENEFITS
Plants that have been bearing for a while begin to tire, becoming vulnerable to insect attacks and infections. With successive sowing, as soon as a new crop starts to bear, the older, more susceptible one can be removed.
Some pests are more prolific at different times of the year than others. Staggered plantings can take advantage of this —a later sowing of squash will ripen in early autumn when there aren’t as many shield bugs around.
And finally, succession planting can rescue a garden from the devastating effects of a summer hail storm — if your newly transplanted seedlings have been smashed, your succession planting plan means you have some on standby ready to plant.