Successive Planting

Successive planting is a great method of providing a continuous supply of your favorite vegetables throughout the entire season. Some vegetables, such as tomatoes and peppers, provide a continuous harvest, so successive planting is not necessary. Other vegetables, however, have a short window of harvest time, so planting every two weeks or so will ensure a much longer availability of your favorites. For example, green beans could be planted every two weeks from mid-May until the end of July. Broccoli is another good candidate for successive plantings. Although broccoli can continue to provide some smaller heads after the larger center head has been harvested, it still is preferable to plant every two or three weeks, starting in early May and ending in late July. This allows for optimal harvest over a much longer period of time.

Other vegetables that work well with this planting method are radish, spinach (a couple plantings in spring and then again late July for a fall harvest), carrots, cucumbers, corn, beet greens and lettuce. Don’t forget herbs as well! Try successive planting with dill, basil and cilantro.