Practice

Succession Planting

Also known as: successive sowing, staggered planting, relay cropping

Planting the same crop at staggered intervals — typically every 2 to 4 weeks — so that harvest is spread across the season rather than concentrated in a single glut. Also used to mean planting a second or third crop in the same bed after the first finishes, doubling or tripling annual yield from the same ground. The practice is what separates a garden that produces in waves from a garden that produces continuously.

A single planting of lettuce produces a single harvest. Three plantings of lettuce two weeks apart produce six weeks of harvest. Six plantings of lettuce across the spring produce three months of harvest. The math is obvious; the practice takes discipline.

Two senses of the term

Same-crop succession — repeated sowings of the same crop at intervals (e.g. lettuce every 14 days, beans every 21 days, carrots every 21 days) to spread harvest.
Bed-turnover succession — when one crop finishes, a different crop goes in immediately. Spring spinach → summer beans → fall brassicas in the same bed, same year.

Both senses are usually meant together in practice; the well-run garden does both.

What works in succession

Salad greens — lettuce, arugula, mizuna, mustard greens. Every 10–14 days through the cool seasons.
Radishes — fast (25–30 days); easy to keep going.
Carrots and beets — slower but rewards staggered sowing.
Bush beans — every 3 weeks for continuous harvest May–frost.
Cilantro and dill — both bolt fast; succession is the only way to have either in steady supply.
Scallions — straightforward.

What does not work in succession

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant — long-season fruiting crops; one planting per year.
Winter squash, melons — same; long season, one planting.
Garlic, onions — single planting, single harvest, but on a long maturation cycle.

Planning the succession

Most gardeners keep some form of written record: bed map + date list + what was sown when + what to sow next. The discipline of writing it down is what separates intent from practice. A wall calendar, a notebook, or a spreadsheet — the medium does not matter.

For new gardeners: start with one crop (lettuce or radish) sown every two weeks. Note what gets eaten, what bolts, what gets wasted. Adjust interval next season.

Sources

Eliot Coleman, The New Organic Grower (Chelsea Green) — formalized succession scheduling for the modern market garden
Charles Dowding, Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Garden Diary — running record of Homeacres succession dates

Rooted in life.

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Practical

shares approach with

The Gardener's Summer succession planting is the practice that defines summer garden cadence — keeping beds turning rather than gluts collapsing

1 inbound link · 3 outbound