Succession planting

I've been posting about succession planting since at least 2010. You can see some posts on the topic here and here. The Providence Journal even did a story on succession planting last year that featured an interview with me and pictures of One Love Farm. Unfortunately, that article is no longer available online. If you stop by the Richmond Farmers' Market I can show you a copy.

The picture I uploaded for this post shows succession planting in action. There is are two rows of lettuce greens that are done and ready to be replaced with more lettuce. Next to them (going right to left) is a row of beets that will be harvested in a couple of weeks. The next row is onions. We will harvest them in late summer. The last row is carrots and they will be pulled in a couple of weeks.

With succession planting, you are harvesting crops and replacing them with new crops in the same space. This allows for maximum use of space and lots more veggies than if you put in a single planting.

I will pull out the lettuce this week and put down some organic fertilizer and plant some summer lettuce. Then, when the beets are done, I'll harvest them and put down more organic fertilizer and plant beets for fall harvest. The onions won't be ready until late summer so I might plant a row of radishes for fall harvest when the onions are done. The carrots will be ready shortly so I will again put down organic fertilizer after I harvest them and plant a variety of carrot that does well for fall harvest.