Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Garden Lesson wk of 7/2 - Succession Planting

What is succession planting? – Succession planting is planting crops one after another in order to maximize the food produced in a given space. Some examples from our garden are the cucumbers currently growing where we had lettuce this spring and the green beans growing where we had green peas this spring. Additional crops will follow on throughout the year keeping our garden productive from spring through fall! As a rule of thumb, summer things (squash, tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, peppers) can be planted as late as the beginning of June and still perform well in the garden. This makes them great candidates to follow the very early spring plants like spinach, radishes and some lettuces. Green beans make a great follow on to any crop that is finished before the beginning of September because they only need 2 months to produce pods. In the fall, lettuce, radishes, spinach and other greens can follow after the high summer crops of cucumbers, squash and zucchini that have usually given up by the time weather starts to cool off in September. By using succession planting, we can double or triple the productivity of our garden!

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