I have several succession crops going in my garden. Corn and squash for a two sisters garden was planted for the third time yesterday. I have two more to go. Also I put in another succession of turnips. That one isn't doing as well. The second sowing never really came up. The soil was too dry. So I resowed what was bare and sowed another row too.
I can squeeze through - barelyMy garden is small and some of my paths are tight to keep the area cropping larger. But keeping each bed in production is the most important thing. My carrot bed will be come a brassica bed for the fall, and the brassica beds will become carrot beds. Some of my broccoli will get ripped out to plant more broccoli, but some in that bed will stay to produce side shoots. When my onions come out I'll plant kale. And I do another sowing of lettuce every couple of weeks. I really don't need 20 heads of lettuce all at once, but six every couple of weeks is perfect.
Today I got my soil blocker out and made the block I'll be using until about August. None of these needs a lot of blocks, so I put them in smaller containers for each kind of plant I need. In the spring I get flats. In the summer I get small old take out containers with holes in the bottom. Most of these will sit and dry until I need them. Then they will be rehydrated for use. My calendar has the date that I'm supposed to sow each one. Though I still haven't figured out what I want to grow for my cabbage/kohlrabi bed in the fall. European cabbage rarely does well here in the fall. I'm not sure why. It might be that my garden doesn't have enough sun in the fall as the neighbors' houses and trees are pretty close. I love European cabbages, but I tend to do better with the Chinese cabbages. I'll have to think about it.
This is my last succession of lettuce planted on May 20th with the new one seeded today. Six plants of a summer mix. I segregate the mixed lettuce seed into white and black to try to not have too many duplicates. And when they come up I keep some of the reds and some of the greens. It is kind of fun not knowing what will pop up. I hope I like them.
Soil blocks! Now that is awesome!
ReplyDeleteI'm not as disciplined as you, evidently. No calendar entries for me! But then my garden is smaller, so needs less planning.
ReplyDeleteWow. That is amazingly organized. It's great how you replace some of the broccoli so you'll get more big heads, while leaving others to continue on and produce side shoots.
ReplyDeleteWe've grown two sister's in the past too. We also grow squash under the sweet peas - not sure whether that helps with moisture retention but it seems to work
ReplyDeleteI don't keep a calendar of succession dates, but I do think ahead based on what's in the garden. Lately I've been sowing lettuce about the same time that I set the latest batch of seedlings out and that happened just as I started cutting some of the previous planting of lettuce. I know that my garlic and onions will be maturing in the coming weeks so I'm getting brassicas going to succeed them. My long growing season allows me a lot of wiggle room for planting dates, so I usually just wing it.
ReplyDeleteYou are very organised and are clearly getting a lot from your garden, there is definably a lesson I can learn. I think a will be creating a calender for next year particularly for seed sowing.
ReplyDeleteYou're so organized! I don't think I have a good (tested) succession plan for any veg yet - there's still lots of trial and error ahead for me on that front.
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