Gardening glossary
Succession planting
Succession planting solves the classic vegetable-garden problem: 40 lettuces ready in one week, then nothing for a month. The fix is to sow small amounts more often, or to plan one bed to flow through two or three crops in a single season.
There are three main flavours:
**1. Staggered sowing of the same crop.** Sow a short row of lettuce, radish, spinach, bush beans, or carrots every 2–3 weeks. Each batch matures while the next is still coming on. Most short-season crops (under 60 days to harvest) suit this approach.
**2. Sequential crops in the same bed.** Plan the bed so that as one crop finishes, the next goes in. A common rotation in a temperate kitchen garden: early peas in spring → bush beans in summer → autumn kale or spinach. The trick is matching crop length to the days remaining before your first frost.
**3. Different varieties of the same crop with different maturity dates.** Sow an early, mid, and late variety of sweetcorn or potatoes on the same day and harvest in three waves. Useful when seed-starting space limits the staggered approach.
Practical tips:
- Check days-to-maturity on every seed packet and count backwards from your first frost. - Refresh the bed with compost and a light side dressing between crops. - Pair succession planting with floating row cover in cooler months to extend the season at both ends. - Keep a written sowing calendar — even a simple table — so May-you doesn’t betray August-you.
The mindset shift is the hardest part. Most beginners plant once in spring and forget. Succession growers plant *something* every other week from March through September. The Growli app will nudge you when the next sowing window opens for the crops in your plan.