Succession Planting Planner
Plan repeat sowings at the right interval, stopping at the last date that can still finish.
Succession planting is the difference between a glut and a supply: one row of lettuce is a salad week and then a memory, while a short row every three weeks is salads until frost. This planner takes a crop, a first sowing date and your zone, and lays out every repeat sowing at the crop’s proper interval, stopping at the last date whose harvest can still beat the first frost.
Intervals are built in per crop, from two weeks for radish and beans to three for lettuce, carrots and herbs. Crops usually sown once (tomatoes, winter squash) get a polite warning instead of a schedule.
How this is worked out
Sowings step forward from your first date at the crop’s succession interval (two weeks for fast crops like radish, beans and cilantro, three for lettuce, carrots and beets). The last allowed sowing = average first frost minus the crop’s days to harvest minus a one week buffer, so every sowing on the list can genuinely finish. Sixteen sowings is the display cap, well past any real season for the fastest crops.
Assumptions:
- Intervals assume you eat at a household pace. A small household sows shorter rows at the same interval, not longer intervals.
- Heat pauses are the gardener’s call: lettuce and spinach sown into a hot spell bolt, so skipping a slot beats sowing into it.
- The frost end date is a zone average. Covered crops (under fleece or a tunnel) buy about two more weeks at the end, which is two more radish sowings and one more lettuce.
Worked examples
1. Bush beans, Zone 6b, first sowing May 4. Every two weeks: May 4, May 18, Jun 1, and on until mid August, about 8 sowings, with picking rolling from late June to frost.
2. Lettuce, Zone 7a, first sowing Mar 30. Every three weeks through the season with a likely summer gap the gardener chooses to skip; the schedule shows the slots, the heat decides which ones happen.
3. Radish, anywhere. Two week intervals, 30 days to harvest: the cheapest crop to succession, and the one that teaches the habit. Sow a short row each time the seed box comes out for anything else.
Which crops reward succession, and which do not
| Group | Interval | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Radish, cilantro, lettuce, spinach | 2 to 3 weeks | Short harvest windows; quality collapses with age or heat |
| Bush beans, peas, carrots, beets | 2 to 3 weeks | Heavy yield in a short burst, then done |
| Cucumbers, zucchini, basil, dill | 3 weeks | Fresh young plants outproduce tired ones late in the season |
| Tomatoes, peppers, winter squash, corn (blocks) | Sow once (corn: small blocks can stagger) | Long individual harvest seasons; one planting gives for months |
The pattern: succession pays when the picking window is short or the plant declines fast. It wastes seed and bed space when one plant already yields for a whole season.
Common mistakes
- Full beds per sowing. Succession rows are short by design. A full bed of lettuce every three weeks is a compost subscription.
- Rigid intervals in all weather. The interval is a rhythm, not a law. Skip the sowing that lands in a heat wave or a holiday; the schedule re-forms after it.
- No marking of rows. Three identical rows of carrots at three ages need labels with dates, or thinning and harvesting become archaeology.
- Ending too early. The last viable sowing is later than most gardeners guess, especially for radish, spinach and Asian greens. The planner’s stop date is the discipline most gardens lack.
Putting the result to work
Put the sowing dates in the calendar as recurring appointments with the seed packet in hand, and tick each off. Keep the seed for the whole schedule together in one envelope per crop so a missing packet never breaks the chain. When the first sowing bolts, floods or feeds the slugs, the schedule absorbs it: that resilience is the real point. The Seasonal Garden Calendar places these repeats among the rest of the year’s jobs.
How do I plan succession sowings?
- Pick the crop; its interval fills in (editable if your household eats faster or slower).
- Set the first sowing date and your zone, which fixes the season’s end.
- Read the sowing dates; each shows its expected harvest start.
- Sow short rows at each date and label them.
- Skip a slot rather than sowing lettuce or spinach into a heat wave.
What is succession planting?
Sowing the same crop in small batches at regular intervals through the season, so harvests arrive in sequence instead of all at once. It suits crops with short picking windows or fast decline: lettuce, radish, beans, carrots, cilantro and spinach are the classics.
How often should I sow lettuce?
Every two to three weeks in spring and fall, in short rows. In summer heat, lettuce bolts: either pause sowings, switch to heat-tolerant varieties in shade, or accept bitter leaves. The interval matters less than matching the sowing to weather the crop enjoys.
When is the last sowing that still finishes?
Count back from the first frost: last sowing = first frost minus days to harvest minus a buffer week. This planner does that count per crop and zone. For hardy crops under cover, add about two weeks of grace at the end of the season.
How much should I sow each time?
About one to two weeks of your household’s eating of that crop. For lettuce that is often a 2 to 4 ft row, for beans a 4 to 6 ft row. More seed in the ground is not more food; it is more thinning, more glut, and more waste.
Can I succession plant tomatoes or squash?
They are normally sown once because each plant yields for months. A second, later tomato planting does have one real use: in long-season zones it replaces plants lost to disease mid-season, and a late zucchini often escapes the vine borers that killed the first. Those are tactics, not a schedule.
Intervals and days to harvest are standard planning values per crop. Season end uses zone average first frost dates consistent with the 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map climate basis.
