Succession Cropping

Succession Cropping
Here at Abe’s Beer Garden, I use a method of gardening called succession gardening. This simply means that I do not plant large quantities of most crops at the same time. I usually space the crops at 2 -week intervals, ensuring an almost continuous harvest throughout the season. This method works well with the following crops:
Green Beans
Beets
Sweet Corn
Lettuce
Radish
Carrots
Summer Squash
Cabbage
Kohlrabi
Cucumber
Turnips

In my Zone 6 garden, most of these I begin planting in mid-April under grow lights or in the hot bed. I continue planting at 2-week intervals until about mid-July. Lettuce and radishes I will continue to plant until about mid-September. Since I have a greenhouse, I can actually continue planting radish, lettuce and turnips until early October. I do usually plant larger crops of green beans, beets and cucumber in July, as I pickle the cucumbers and dehydrate the green beans and beets for use later in the winter when the fresh ones are no longer available.
As the earlier crops mature and are harvested, they leave room for later crops of something else. For instance, when the potatoes come out in late July, I will have beet plants in bedding packs ready to plant in their place. When I harvest onions in mid-July I plant a late, fall crop of potatoes which I planted in pots in mid to late June. Tomato, sweet potato, winter squash and peppers will occupy their spots in the garden the entire season, however by utilizing succession cropping I can get 2, and sometimes 3 crops of different vegetables from the same space over the course of the summer and fall.

The photo at the top of this post shows one example of succession cropping, using green beans as the subject. The plants on the far right are actually finished and ready to cut so I can plant something else. The plants on the far left were planted the week before this photo was taken. In between are green bean plants at various stages of harvest.

The fence keeps rabbits from grazing on the young plants.