Every new gardener makes the same mistake with lettuce. They buy one packet, sow the whole thing in May, and six weeks later they have more lettuce than they know what to do with, thirty heads going to seed simultaneously while they desperately give bags away to neighbours. Then there's none at all until the following year.
Succession planting is the solution. Instead of sowing everything at once, you sow small amounts every two to three weeks. The result is a steady, manageable harvest that rolls through the season rather than arriving in an overwhelming wave.
How it works in practice
Take salad leaves as the simplest example. Rather than sowing a whole row in one go, scatter a short row, say, thirty centimetres, every two to three weeks from March through to September. By the time you've harvested the first batch, the second is ready, and the third is coming along behind it. You never have too much. You're never without.
The same principle applies to radishes (sow a small pinch every couple of weeks for continuous harvest), beetroot (fortnightly sowings from April to July), spinach, spring onions, and peas. Fast-maturing crops lend themselves particularly well to this approach.
Crops that benefit most from succession sowing
- Lettuce and salad leaves: every two to three weeks, March to September
- Radishes: every two weeks, March to August (they bolt in heat, so skip the peak of summer if needed)
- Peas: sow in March, again in April, and a final sowing in May for autumn pods
- Beetroot: fortnightly from April to July
- French beans: sow in late May and again in late June for a longer harvest window
- Spring onions: small sowings every three to four weeks, April to July
The other kind of succession: following one crop with another
Succession planting also means thinking about what comes after a crop is finished. Early potatoes harvested in June leave prime bed space for a late sowing of French beans, salad, or turnips. Overwintered broad beans cleared in July can be followed by kale transplants or late beetroot. The goal is to have the next crop ready to go in as soon as one comes out.
Keeping a bed bare for more than a week or two is always a missed opportunity. It's also bad practice, bare soil loses structure, dries out, and gets taken over by weeds. A covered bed is a productive bed.
Planning it on paper first
Succession planting rewards forward planning. At the start of each season, I sketch out a loose monthly plan, what I want to be harvesting each month, and what that means I need to sow and when. It doesn't need to be complicated; even a simple list of "sow by this date for this harvest month" is enough to avoid the glut-and-gap problem.
If you're aiming for year-round productivity, read our guide to keeping the garden going through winter, the same thinking applied to cold-season crops extends your harvest right through to spring.
Little and often is, in the end, a gardening philosophy as much as a technique. It applies to almost everything, watering, feeding, sowing, harvesting. A small, regular effort beats a big occasional push, every time.
