Prolong Your Harvest - Succession Planting

Pole beans and tomatoes planted in succession.

Want to enjoy green beans all summer? Plant seeds at 3 week intervals. Known as succession planting, this allows you to enjoy fresh vegetables for a longer season as not all of your crop will be ripe at once.

Learn from my mistake. Last spring I put in my garden to keep busy as my kids grew up. To say I was inspired is putting it lightly. I had a new project and nothing makes me happier than a new project. I couldn't wait to get the seeds planted because I couldn't wait to see the garden turn green. 

On the seed packets, it was suggested that I plant seeds in succession but I couldn't resist. I planted everything at once. Later in the summer I regretted it. All my beans were gone and there were still weeks of hot bean growing weather left in the season. Too late to plant then, but if I had taken the seed packet advise I would have enjoyed those beans for many more weeks.

This year I planted melons in succession, roughly 3 weeks apart.

Melons mounds (left to right); cantaloup, honeydew, Crenshaw, cantaloup

Carrots were planted in 3 week intervals. So far I have 4 plantings of carrots. We are eating the first round, and the fourth round just germinated.

First carrots of the season, harvested May 11.

This is my cucumber mound. The plants on the right were planted on March 4th. The ones toward the back/left were planted April 5th. There are two types of cucumbers planted in the same mound for variety.

For me, it's all about learning as I go. It's amazing how much I learned about vegetable gardening in the year since I started my urban garden. 

Like... it's good to take advise from seed packets.