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How to Use Succession Planting to Grow More Food

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How to Use Succession Planting to Grow More Food - An introduction to using succession planting and succession planting schedules for various vegetables.Gardening should be easy – toss some seeds out, water them, and in a month or so, harvest the fruits of your labor. In theory, it is that easy. More often than not, there are better gardening methods that you can implement to get the most out of your backyard garden. Instead of harvesting your vegetables just once, wouldn't it be more awesome to harvest them continually over the summer? You can grow more food with succession planting than you can with just regular planting. Succession planting is when you continually grow the same plant in the same space over the course of the growing season.

How to Use Succession Planting to Grow More Food

One of the easiest ways to explain succession planting is with lettuce. This week, spread lettuce seeds over your seedling mix and water them in well. You can start harvesting the baby leaves in as little as 2-3 weeks. Every week, add more seeds to this same seedling mix. In turn, you will be able to harvest lettuce every week as you put more seed down. This only works for lettuce varieties that you don't want to grow a head. Try mesclun, looseleaf, spinach, Radicchio and Romaine – just harvest before the heads are formed.

Succession planting works well for carrots and radishes too. Instead of seeding weekly, sow seeds every 2-3 weeks. Also, anytime you harvest the carrot or radish (they're ready when they pop their shoulders out of the ground), plant another seed in that hole. By succession planting in these two ways, you can double what you will harvest from both the carrots and the radishes.

Another way to succession plant is by staggering your planting schedule. For instance, if you plant a determinate tomato plant today, all of the tomatoes will ripen at the same time. You can start tomato seeds a couple weeks apart so that the plants ripen at different times.

Good Vegetables for Succession Planting

7-Day Intervals

  • Lettuce – Mesclun, Looseleaf, Romaine, Radicchio
  • Spinach

14-Day Intervals

  • Beets
  • Kale
  • Kohlrabi
  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Radish
  • Peas
  • Bush beans
  • Turnips
  • Potatoes

21-Day Interval

  • Arugula
  • Carrots
  • Cucumbers
  • Melons
  • Squash

More Tips for Growing Vegetables

Kristi Trimmer can be found on DragonflyRunning.com. This was originally published on July 8, 2015. It was updated April 13, 2018.

About Alea Milham

Alea Milham is the owner of Premeditated Leftovers and the author of Prep-Ahead Meals from Scatch. She shares her tips for saving money and time while reducing waste in her home. Her favorite hobby, gardening, is a frugal source of organic produce for her recipes. She believes it is possible to live fully and eat well while spending less.

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Welcome. I'm Alea!

On Premeditated Leftovers I share simple recipes made with whole foods, practical shopping tips, time saving techniques, and meal planning strategies. I also share tips for minimizing food waste, so more of the food that is purchased ends up on the table.

While volunteering as a budget counselor, I realized that food is the element of most people’s budgets where they have the greatest control. I set out to develop low-cost recipes from scratch to prove it’s possible to create delicious meals on a limited budget. Eating well while spending less is about more than just creating recipes using inexpensive ingredients; it’s about creatively combining ingredients so you don’t feel deprived and are inspired to stick to your budget.
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