Succession Planting

Succession planting means keeping beds productive all season by either sowing the same crop in small batches every couple of weeks, or planting a new crop the moment one finishes.

Instead of all your lettuce or beans maturing at once, you get a steady supply over many weeks. It maximizes how much a single bed produces in a season and keeps soil covered, which crowds out weeds.

Staggered sowing: sow quick crops like lettuce, radish, spinach, and beans in small amounts every 2–3 weeks rather than all at once. Follow-on cropping: when an early crop is done, refresh the soil with compost and plant the next one. Use fast growers (radish, lettuce) to fill gaps between slower crops.

Match crops to the season — cool-season greens for spring and fall, warm-season crops for summer. Starting some seedlings indoors gives you transplants ready to drop in the moment a bed clears. A simple planting calendar keeps the successions on track.