Learn how to use succession planting effectively to get a longer harvest and greater crop yield throughout the season.
Summer may be peak garden time, but planting season is not over yet. Spring crops are finishing up or bolting, and suddenly you’ve got empty spots sitting in your garden.
Succession planting is a maximalist gardener’s secret weapon to eking out more food from the garden without expanding it into a bigger one.
In this post, you’ll learn the basics of succession planting so you’ll know what to plant once the spring vegetables are finished.
This one skill is the key to having a garden that produces food for the entire season, and it’s what separates the beginner gardeners from master gardeners.
Table of Contents
- What Is Succession Planting?
- Important Numbers to Know for Succession Planting
- Succession Planting by Direct-Sowing
- Succession Planting with Seedlings
- Making Room for Seedlings
What Is Succession Planting?
Succession planting is planting crops in the same space at different times to get more harvests throughout the growing season.
This sounds tricky, but it’s simple to do.
Basically, if you have an empty space in your garden, plant something new in it.
Or if you have some plants that are struggling, bolting (going to seed), or that you’re tired of seeing or eating, then pull it out and plant something new in its place!
Are you reading this post in June or July? Hop over to this one and see exactly what you can plant in July for your zone.
Another way gardeners use succession planting is by staggering plantings.
This keeps you from having a glut (like 20 heads of lettuce all at once) and to spread your harvest over a longer period of time.
Most gardeners do this (continuing with our lettuce example) by planting three or four lettuce plants one week, then three more next week, and so on until frost comes, or until they’re sick of eating lettuce.
However you decide to use it, succession planting is the key to getting tons of harvest out of a small garden or raised bed.
Are you a beginner gardener struggling with your garden? You might be making one of these big mistakes.
Important Numbers to Know for Succession Planting
Ready to try this out? First, you’ll need to know these two important numbers:
- Days left in your growing season
- Days to maturity of the plant you wish to sow
Number of Days Remaining to Grow
To figure out how much time you have left in your growing season, follow these two steps.
- Look up your first frost date on Google. Type in “first frost date” and the name of your town and state or zip code. The date that pops up is the average date that your area receives the first frost of the fall/winter season.
- Count the number of days from today until your first frost date. I just google this, too. It’s easier to ask a computer to count days for you.
For example, my first frost date is on October 10. I’m writing this on June 23, so if I type into Google “days until October 10”, it tells me 109 days.
This means I have 109 days left in my season.
Go ahead and try this out right now, write how many days you have left, then come back to find the next important number.
What If I Have a Short Growing Season?
If you live in a short-season climate, and you have less than 60 days left in your season, focus on planting cold-hardy fall crops. Check out this post for my list of the best vegetables to plant for the fall and winter.
Plan on covering your crops with a row cover or low tunnel later to help plants make it through those first few frosts.
Number of Days to Maturity
This next one is pretty easy. All good seed packets include a “days to maturity” or “days to harvest” number on the back.
This number tells you how long it takes to go from seed to harvest.
Don’t have this number? Then google it. (Yes, google again. And next time, don’t forget to get the hot seed packet’s number or you’ll never end up with someone.)
Type in the variety name and plant name. If you don’t know the variety name, skip it.
For instance, I might type in “Tom Thumb Lettuce days to maturity”. I find that it takes 50 days for Tom Thumb Lettuce to mature.
If I were to type in “lettuce days to maturity,” I would get a range of 40-80 days, which is not as helpful, but still better than nothing.
Succession Planting by Direct-Sowing
Now that we have both those numbers in our heads, we can figure out what you can succession plant right now, on this very day.
The key to successfully harvesting a second crop is to plant something that will mature before your first frost.
Look at the number of days to maturity for the crop you want plant. If that number is at least 10 days less than the days left in your season, you can reasonably expect to harvest it before the season is over.
You know, unless a bunny eats it, or it gets struck by lightning or dug up by a toddler. Reasonable expectations.
Continuing with the lettuce example, my Tom Thumb lettuce takes 50 days. I have 109 days left in my growing season to plant and harvest this lettuce before winter comes. I can even plant and harvest this lettuce a second time before the season ends.
How to Direct Sow a New Succession
So now it’s your turn.
- Rifle through your seed collection and select your succession crop.
- Direct sow the seeds for your succession crop in any empty space in your garden beds.
- Label the spot where you planted. Unless you like a little chaos.
- Keep the seeds watered until they germinate.
- Don’t let them die before you get your first harvest.
It’s also helpful to feed the young seedlings with slow-release granular fertilizer or with a liquid feed according to package directions. I find that second plantings need a little more help to get going mid-season because they are competing with mature plants around them.
But if you are planting up an empty bed, just top it off with good quality compost or bagged garden soil and you’ll be good to go.
Need a little inspiration as to what to plant next? Take a look at my post on the best fast-growing vegetables for impatient gardeners.
Succession Planting with Seedlings
Advanced level gardeners can also start seeds in cell trays or in a nursery bed before they are needed so that transplants are ready to replace spent plants.
This entails keeping an eye on crops that are approaching final harvest or that you know you will want to pull early.
For example, my onions have sized up and are nearly ready for harvest.
Once they are harvested, I’ll have an empty space. I know that I have plenty of time right now to grow Tom Thumb lettuce to maturity. If I start a 6-cell tray of lettuce a couple weeks before I plan to harvest my onions, I’ll have seedlings big enough to transplant immediately after harvesting the onions.
And if I start these seeds outdoors rather than indoors in my grow room, the seedlings will already be acclimated to the weather and will not even need to be hardened off.
Making Room for Seedlings
The hard part of succession planting is making room for new seedlings. A plant that is going to seed or that is struggling may be difficult for you to pull out.
You may not want to see an empty space in your garden. Maybe you got too emotionally attached to a plant and you don’t want to let it go, even though it’s struggling.
You think you can save it, but it would probably be best to pull the plug.
I’m exaggerating, but I do know the feeling of not wanting to remove a plant.
What helps me uproot plants in my garden is to imagine growing and harvesting a new plant.
Part of what keeps a garden attractive and productive is removing plants that are no longer serving you.
Gardening is cyclical. Everything has its time to shine and a time to make way for something else to grow.
Let It Go and Let It Grow
Succession planting can be a tricky skill to master in practice, but now that you know the basics, you’ll only get better at it as you keep gardening.
Pay attention to your plants and look for opportunities to plant something new.
Keep your first frost date in mind as you’re selecting seeds to grow. Choose plants that will mature before that date.
I hope this guide was helpful to you and that you learned something new.
If you liked this post, please leave a comment down below and let me know!