In the garden: How to produce a steady supply of fresh produce all season long

Lettuce started in the early spring. The top section has already been harvested once while underneath is the new lettuce growing.  Photo by Judith Cox. 

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Succession gardening is a term that you often hear, especially associated with food crops. It is a way of gardening whereby the crops are planted at intervals so that they are not all ready for harvest at the same time.  This way, you will have a steady supply of fresh produce all season long. 

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For example, one of my favourite vegetables to grow is lettuce. I plant a variety of seeds: romaine, buttercrunch, red leaf and my favourite heritage types. I garden primarily in pots, but you can do this in rows in your garden.  

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Lettuce grows really well in spring but by mid-June, it tends to wilt in full sun. I can move the pots into the shade for the summer and transport them back to sunshine in late August. In early spring, I fill a pot with good soil and compost and sprinkle the lettuce seed on top. I gently press the seed so that it makes good contact with the soil. Remember that if you are gardening in pots, the nutrients in the soil will be quickly depleted so they will need a weekly feeding of organic fertilizer such as fish or kelp or packaged hen manure. The first lettuce will be ready for harvest in mid-May at the latest. I harvest lettuce by cutting it down to the base – that plant will grow up again giving me a second harvest.  I only harvest from a lettuce plant twice as it begins to taste bitter after that.  But after the first harvest I also plant a lettuce seed very close to each existing plant.  These seeds will grow giving me yet another crop.  Simply put, if you plant lettuce seeds every two or three weeks, you will have a constant harvest throughout the gardening season.  I also set aside one pot of heritage lettuces that I do not harvest. I let them grow and flower and set seed, then collect the seeds to grow the following year. 

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Daffodils showing the end of early daffodils and the beginning of mid-season daffodils. Photo by Judith Cox 

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If your garden is in the ground and in full sun, then you can do the same succession gardening by using companion plants to provide the shade the lettuce needs.  Plant the lettuce in the sunny garden early in the spring.  In mid-May, plant bush bean seeds (Phaseolus vulgaris) beside the growing lettuce.  I also interplant nasturtium (Tropaeolum spp.) and marigold (Tagetes spp.) seeds. After the first lettuce is harvested and the beans are growing, plant more lettuce seeds under the leaves of the beans. As the beans are harvested, the nasturtiums and marigolds will then supply the shade for the lettuce. You are only limited by your imagination. 

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Baby lettuce with pole beans. Photo by Judith Cox. 

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Root crops can also be grown in succession. I have successfully done this with  carrots, beets, parsnips and of course, radishes.  Plant the first seeds in mid-May and plant more seeds every two weeks until mid-August. While lettuce will curl up and perish at the idea of frost, root crops are much hardier.  Carrots that are harvested after the first frost seem to be much sweeter. An added advantage of planting root crops later is that this can avoid their usual pest problems. Baby earwigs adore new carrots in the spring and slugs tend to be very fond of the tops of root crops. By June the earwigs have moved on and, in my garden, birds and toads are taking care of the slugs. You can grow root crops in pots as well, providing your pot is larger and with a depth of at least 25 cm (10 in).