Consider This

Once you start thinking about succession planting, you should start to consider the varied uses you wish for your harvest. Do you plan on doing any preserving such as canning, drying, fermenting, pickling, etc.? Do you have a root cellar to store some crops in? These considerations will impact which varieties you plant and when. Obviously, storage carrots should be grown so that they are ready to harvest quite late in the season when they can go into a root cellar. This would dictate their planting date.

Planning ahead is key. Before you start to plant, sketch out a garden plan and note where you want to plant what. For instance, in the block devoted to early radishes and spinach, sow a crop of bush beans when the space opens up. After the garlic is harvested, pop in a fall spinach crop.

Consider what your optimal harvest quantities are. How much lettuce would you hope to have available each week? If you’re unlikely to use more than six heads of lettuce/week, planting 24 seedlings at a time isn’t wise. Instead, spread out the planting so that the quantities available will more closely resemble your usage targets.