...if you have a backyard and a kitchen, this blog might be for you!

a chronicle of tips and recipes on everything from gardening to canning and baking your produce, even if you're planted in suburbia...in fact, especially if you are planted in suburbia.



Saturday, July 24, 2010

Succession Planting in the Smaller Garden

















I mentioned in the last recipe post that I had my timing a bit off with my successive planting. Here's what I meant by that. Mid-July usually finds me pulling out the dying remains of some of my first summer plants--zucchini and bush beans, for instance. If I hadn't practiced successive planting, this would be the end of the growing season for those veggies. But, because I do successive planting, I have a longer growing season. I start my growing season by planting partial rows. Then a few weeks later, I fill in the row a bit further with new seeds or seedlings. Sometimes, I'll take space that a spring plant occupied and that is open again in summer and add a few more plants in that spot. With a little planning, I have summer produce most of the summer season. If you notice above, I have squash at three different stages of development right now. Below, you'll see beans in the same arrangement, from an aging, dying plant in the lower right corner to a robust bean-producer centered to a brand new seedling centered lower in the photo.
A second way to look at successive planting is by the seasons. As summer planting moves into fall, I'll show you what that looks like in the garden.

Finally, I'll offer up a link not only for information on successive planting, but also for pointers on garden arranging in general.
Gardening post is a little short today. I spent a lot of the day busy canning, but I'll catch you up on that next week!

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