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Succession planting

A single square foot can produce 3–4 harvests a year instead of one. Succession planting is the art of keeping every square busy from March to November: as soon as one crop is pulled, another goes straight in. No bare soil, no idle squares, no 'summer slump' — just a steady flow of fresh produce.

Why practise succession?

  • 2–4× more yield per square — one square of spring radish → summer beans → autumn kale produces three crops from one space.
  • Steady harvests — instead of 20 lettuces at once, sow 3 every 2 weeks for fresh heads all summer. No bolting, no waste.
  • No wasted real estate — a bare square is a weedy square. Keep every square planted and weeding almost disappears.
  • Matches the season — cool-season crops (peas, lettuce) → warm-season (tomatoes, beans) → cool again (kale, spinach) — each crop gets the temperature it loves.

    • Four succession techniques

    Staggered sowing (same crop)

    Sow the same crop every 2–3 weeks so harvests arrive in waves instead of one big glut. Perfect for lettuce, radish, spinach, bush beans, spring onions. Stop 8 weeks before the first expected frost.

    Follow-on crop (different crop)

    Plant a second, different crop in the square the moment the first is cleared. Pull spring radishes → plant summer bush beans. Pull summer beans → plant autumn lettuce. The rhythm of the SFG year.

    Catch crop (fast filler)

    Quick-maturing crops (radish, cress, rocket, baby lettuce) fill a square for 4–6 weeks while you wait for the 'real' crop to be ready for transplant. Free food, zero wasted time.

    Relay / intercropping

    Sow the next crop under or beside the dying previous one before it's cleared. Example: sow autumn lettuce between tomatoes in August — the tomatoes give shade; once tomatoes are pulled the lettuces take over.

    Proven succession chains

    Six real SFG combos you can copy. Dates are for zone 7/8 (Central Europe, mild UK) — shift ±2 weeks for colder or warmer zones.

    Spring → summer → autumn leaf

    Lettuce (Mar–May) → bush beans (Jun–Aug) → winter lettuce or mâche (Sep–Nov). Leaf crop both ends, N-fixer in the middle feeds the soil for free.

    Carrots → cucumber → garlic

    Carrots (Apr–Jul) → cucumber on a trellis (Jul–Sep) → garlic (Oct, overwinters). The garlic uses the quiet winter square and finishes in early summer — freeing the spot for the next cycle.

    Peas → tomato → chard

    Peas (Mar–Jun, fix nitrogen) → tomato (Jun–Sep, heavy feeder loves the N-rich soil) → chard or kale (Sep–Dec). Classic heavy-feeder-after-N-fixer trick.

    Radish → carrot → mâche

    Sow radishes and carrots together in Mar — radishes finish in 4 weeks (marking the slow-germinating carrot row), carrots mature Jul, sow lamb's lettuce in the empty square Aug–Sep for winter harvest.

    Lettuce → pepper → chard

    Early lettuce (Mar–May) → transplant pepper (May–Oct) → fast autumn chard (Oct–Dec). Lettuce clears just as peppers are ready to go out after last frost.

    Garlic → squash → lamb's lettuce

    Overwintered garlic (Oct–Jun) → transplant young squash or pumpkin into the empty square (Jun–Oct) → sow winter mâche (Oct–Mar). Uses all 12 months of the year.

    Quick fillers (under 40 days from sow to harvest)

    Keep a packet of these handy — they're perfect for any square that opens up unexpectedly:

  • Radish — 21–28 days from sowing. The classic gap-filler.
  • Rocket, mizuna, Asian salads — 25–30 days. Cut-and-come-again extends the harvest.
  • Cress, micro greens — 10–14 days. Perfect for the tiniest gap.
  • Baby spinach, spring onions from sets — 30–40 days.
  • Bush beans (dwarf) — 55–65 days. Plant anytime from last frost to 8 weeks before first frost.

    • How to keep succession smooth

  • Add a handful of compost to the square before replanting. The soil has just fed a crop — it needs topping up.
  • Rotate the category! Don't follow a heavy feeder with another heavy feeder. Ideal sequence: heavy feeder → nitrogen-fixer (beans, peas) → leafy → root → back to heavy feeder.
  • Have the next crop ready. Start seedlings in modules 3–4 weeks before the current crop is due to come out, so you can transplant the moment the square is clear.
  • Water thoroughly after replanting and for the next 2 weeks — the transplant shock + low rainfall in summer is the biggest cause of succession failure.
  • Track what goes where. Note each square's history on paper or in PlotMate — it takes 30 seconds and saves you from accidentally following tomatoes with tomatoes next year.

    • Common mistakes

  • Sowing the summer crop too early in the cool spring soil — it sulks for weeks and you save no time.
  • Leaving the square bare for 'a couple of weeks' — a week of weeds is worth a month of pulling them out later.
  • Stacking two heavy feeders in a row — the second will be starved and yield badly. Slip a legume or leafy crop between.
  • Sowing autumn crops too late — most autumn greens need 8–10 weeks to mature. Count back from the first expected frost and sow by that date.

    • The golden rule of succession: the day you harvest is the day you replant. A compost-topped, fresh-planted square on harvest day is the single biggest yield booster available to the SFG gardener — and it costs nothing.