Ben Wilcox in Customer Service has provided this wonderful succession planting guide. This reference will help you keep your garden providing for you as long as possible!
Succession Planting Guide
To expand the harvest season from your garden it is important to keep planting new areas of varieties that will ripen sequentially. With fast maturing vegetables it is also possible to follow one crop with a second in the same area. It is important to utilize varieties that can withstand lower temperatures and possible frosts when double cropping at the beginning or end of the season. Shorter day length and low sun angles in the northern states make leafy vegetables the most successful candidates for this type of cropping.
The following tables illustrate the best choices in the northern half of the United States for early, mid, and late-summer plantings of vegetables with rapid maturity.
Spring to Early Summer Plantings
April-May
Many of these vegetables will withstand light frosts. The factor limiting initial planting dates is the ground temperature of 50-55 degrees F necessary to initiate germination. In northern states the first dates the soil can be worked varies from year to year. An open winter with little snow cover can result in deeper frosts, which delay drainage of the surface water until the soil thaws completely.
Beets 35 days greens, 50 days mature
Broccoli transplants 60 days from trans.
Cabbage transplants 60 days from trans.
Collards 50 days
Greens Mix 25 days baby, may be cut again
Lettuce 60 days mature, 30 days from trans.
Lettuce Mix 30 days, may be cut again
Mustard Greens 21 days baby, or 45 days mature, may be cut again
Napa Cabbage 70 days, or 50 days from trans.
Peas, Snow Peas, Snap Peas 60 days
Radish 25-30 days
Scallions 65 days
Spinach 30 days baby, 45 days mature, may be cut again
Mid Summer Plantings
June - July
Most crops have a picking window which is quite short and benefit from succession plantings at two to three week intervals to allow a continuous harvest.
Beets 35 days greens, 50 days mature
Cabbage 60 days from trans.
Carrots 70 days
Cucumbers 60 days, frost sensitive
Lettuce 60 days, or 30 days from trans.
Lettuce Mix 30 days, may be cut again if weather cool
Rutabaga 95 days, very frost hardy
Scallions 65 days
Snap Beans 60 days, frost sensitive
Swiss Chard 30 days baby, 55 days mature
Turnips 40-50 days
Late Summer to Early Fall Plantings
Aug - Sept
Late July and early August are the time to begin plantings that will mature during the cooler fall months. Light frost sweetens the flavor of many greens, and cool temperatures enable some to re grow after cutting the first harvest.
Arugula 21 days baby, 40 days mature
Broccoli Raab 40 days, may be cut again
Broccoli transplants 60 days from trans.
Cabbage transplants 60 days from trans.
Cauliflower transplants 60 days from trans. frost will damage heads if not protected
Cilantro 50 days, will survive light frost
Collards 30 days baby, 60 days mature
Daikon Radish 60 days
Greens Mix 21 days baby, may be cut again
Kale 30 days baby, 60 days mature
Lettuce Mix 30 days, may by cut again
Napa Cabbage 70 days, or 50 days from trans
Mustard Greens 21 days baby, or 45 days mature
Snap Beans 60 days, must be protected against frost
Spinach 30 days baby, 45 days mature, may be cut again
Turnips 40-50 days
08.11.06 B. Wilcox
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThank you for all that great and useful info about succession planting.
We have started to do that, but I find that soil fertility decreases rapidly when planting several crops in succession. We are a certified organic farm and use compost and Fertrell fertilizers. Our soil is rocky silt, drains rapidly and obviously is not a very great soil (we have terrible weed problems as well), although the organic matter is fairly high as a fair amount of compost has been added over the years.
Anyway, do you have any suggestion to address this issue?
Thanks, Jerome
jfrigot@yahoo.com
I noticed there's been no reply to this, so I'll offer one that works for me: worm castings. Richest stuff there is. You can make a "tea" of it to spread it best for in-ground gardens.
ReplyDeleteIf your soil's really that bad, I'd recommend trying some raised beds (the Square Foot Gardening method's been amazing for me).
Hi so I will chime in. This will change your life and everyone around you. So worms are great. If you can manufacture enough green matter. So here. Step one send a flyr out to your community. You can get leaves from the fall drop. Compost that and gather all the green waste from your friends and family that eats organic. Double dig with the green matter and the leaves Kind of like a leafy greens sandwich. Then the stuff you have left over will go in your compost bin. I hope at least a three bin system. Then. Lastly.Take a five gallon bucket and urinate in the bucket for three days. No longer. Then depending on how much you have in the bucket probably a gallon. Then You will fill it with 3 gallons of water. Preferably filtered. then pour it in your gardens. Evenly distributed amongst all the beds. This how you do it. Whats nice is that if you do this method your rocks in the coil will move to the top of the beds for easy removal as well as add large amounts of nitrogen.lower your watering bill and really t I believe the plants over time will create a relationship with your physical and mental needs. If you are medications of any kind. Don't use your Urine. This method will blow your mind. If your pouring the fluid in to the compost bin then only use half the water.If you don't want to use the urine then just follow all the other steps
ReplyDeleteI hope this helps
Gordon Westfall
http://ww.wix.com/makai3169/uff
Very pleased to find this list on your blog. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThis is just what I was looking for this year. I will be trying it.
ReplyDeleteIts suggested by Mel Bartholomew, author of All New Square Foot Gardening, that one adds a cupful or 2 of good compost to a new planting hole after removal of the old plants, to keep up the soil's fertility.
Hooray for more food this year!