What is Succession Planting?

If you have been gardening for any period of time, you have probably heard the term, “succession planting”, and you may have wondered what it is and how to do it.

Succession planting is a gardening technique that staggers plantings for more steady and continuous harvests throughout the growing season.

There are a couple of different ways to achieve this. First, you can plan to plant seeds of a particular vegetable once every 2-3 weeks. For example, let’s say you want to plant three rows of carrots. Plant the first row, then wait 2-3 weeks and plant the second row. Once another 2-3 weeks has passed plant the third row. Boom! You just used succession planting. 

This method ensures that you will have steady harvests of one particular vegetable rather than having all of them mature at the same time. Which may leave you with more harvests than you can consume at once. 

Another way to use succession planting is to plant your entire kitchen garden continuously throughout the entire growing season rather than planting everything all at the same time. For example, many people will plant their entire garden in one big planting during the month of May. Then they won’t plant again for the rest of the season.

Successive gardening means you plant different vegetables during each growing season. This starts in April and going all the way through to October. In my garden, I have a few big plantings per season. Beyond that, I continue to replace spent plants and replant as needed.

Succession planting makes both planting and harvesting more manageable. It also ensures that you will get the most use of your garden space throughout the entire growing season. Grab my Columbus Monthly Planting Calendar to help you get starting.