pepperhead212
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2851
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

Re: Succession planting strategies

I have two more plants that I will be succession planting this year. One is that bottle gourd, which produced an incredible amount of fruits from two plants, but eventually slowed to a crawl. So I figure that one will produce more than I can use, and maybe a second one, planted 6 weeks later, might start producing when the other one is slowing down.

Same thing with a new tomato I grew - Sunset Falls - that is a determinate, that produced a large number of delicious tomatoes, eventually stopping totally. So I figure that I'll start 2 plants at the normal time, and 4 weeks later, 2 more, and 4 weeks later, 2 more. Usually I don't grow determinates, but this one was an incredible producer, with a great flavor, and it was really too bad that I had only one plant! But, I always do that when testing new varieties, and when I find out how good it is, it is too late to have more.

MsDDC
Cool Member
Posts: 96
Joined: Mon Sep 30, 2019 8:11 pm
Location: Washington, DC; 7A by the map but 7B by local urban temps

For my spring and summer garden, I mix up direct sowing and starting indoors to get plants of slightly different ages to do succession planting.

So, let's say it's spring. I start a couple cauliflower, romanesco, and broccoli indoors about 6 weeks before the last 28 degrees, harden them off outside about 3 weeks later, and then transfer them to the garden the next week (Dollar Tree usually has peat pots for $1/dozen in the spring, and I load up on them when I find them at that price). A week after I put them in the ground, I direct sow seeds for the same, and more another week later. My personal experience has been that direct sown seeds grow faster (more room to breathe, probably), so I have plants that produce within 1-2 weeks of each other using that technique.

Keep in mind that I'm in DC, where winters are mild and short (the soil can be worked as early as the first of March most years), so adjust to your local environment.

For the fall garden, planted late summer to early autumn, I just direct sow seeds one week apart for several weeks. It's plenty warm here until mid-October such that seeds germinate in the ground readily (average high temps don't drop below 70 until mid to late October, and October usually has at least 16 days with highs above 70). If we have a cool spell, I just drop a piece of fabric (probably something I cut out of old bed sheets) over the newly planted plots to keep them warmer.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

I have been thinking about your garden all summer succession planting will be a big challenge in Canada. I don't think succession planting is possible in a short growing season the shortest crop I know is Beans 65 days you have time to harvest them twice. You will do better planting wide rows. Plant 3 ft wide rows of, garlic, onions, potatoes, beans, greens, anything you can to save space.

I have relatives that live in northern Michigan they live 2 hour drive south of Sault Ste Marie Canada, 1 hour south of Machinaw City MI. Their last frost is about June 6 and first frost about Sept 20 to 30. Their growing season is about 3 months 2 weeks, is yours shorter?. They can grow things I can't and I can grow things they can't. Greens do very well for them but not me in TN our spring weather goes from 30 degrees F to 95 degrees F in 2 months. They don't grow beans and corn because they don't think they can. They are probably trying to grow 95 day corn, they should be growing 72 day corn. Beans are a 65 day crop. Turnip greens are a very good substitute for spinach in TN I can not grow spinach very easy here. Turnip greens do good down to 0 degrees F. Try planting peppers & tomatoes in double rows too, plants 18" apart and 2 parallel rows 18" apart. Last year I planted, onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, in 3 ft wide rows, this year 1 ft wide rows, next year 3 ft wide rows again. I do lots of experimenting just to see what works best for me in this weather. Last year I planted 72 day corn in 4 rows 12" between rows but this year I returned to 32" rows instead of 36" between rows. 12" corn rows are hard to weed I am getting lazy.

I spend the winter watching YouTube videos there is a video of a guy in northern Canada planting corn in his living room in rain gutters. He has 10 rain gutters on saw horses full of soil near the windows. He plants corn seeds 3 weeks before last frost then transplants all the corn to the garden. He built a green house right onto his house when he walks out his house door he is in the green house. He plants other crops early in rain cutters in the house then transplants some to the green house or garden.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I have been doing some succession planting of lettuce. I cannot eat that much lettuce at one time so it is better for me to start 8-10 lettuce seeds in a pot and transplant the individual seedlings to the garden when they are about thumb size. I can plant them in a bed by themselves but, since the snails love them, I prefer to tuck them between other plants. I will restart seeds every 3 weeks or so. My best planting season will be November- May. Lettuce bolts and struggles through summer so I would rather grow kale and Chard instead as a year round green.

Usually in my main garden I do this. My main garden is acidic pH 6.0 in a raised bed 8ft wide and 16 ft long oval shape.
Mar1
Plant warm season crops. First planting of Corn (tropical or temperate) Either UH #9, #`10 or Silver Queen.
If I choose to plant corn. Only lettuce, beets, daikon, and carrots can grow between them. Corn will take up all the space in the main garden.
I can still plant cool season crops in March.
Succession lettuce. I start seeds in pots about 8-10 seeds and plant out every 3 weeks or so until May. Lettuce is ready in 30-55 days.
Komatsuna, Chard, Kale, Broccoli are planted in September and leaves can be harvested until May or I remove them for the corn.
If I forego corn in Mar. I can plant okra, 4 cucumbers on a trellis, bush beans, beets, NZ hot weather spinach (also good in a container), amaranth, and or sunflowers.
I do keep cutting celery, Jamaican oregano permanently in the garden. I also have aloe permanents on one side of the garden.
In my 4 18 gallon pots that have a 7 ft trellis I can grow a combination of these plants
9 pole type beans or 9 snow peas in an 18 gallon pot.
4 parthenocarpic cucumbers usually Diva or Suyo long in an 18 gallon pot or on a trellis in the main garden.
3 tomatoes ( I can trellis up to three tomatoes, but since I am having issues with TYLCV, I only plant Charger and it does not require a 7 ft trellis so I can use a large tomato cage instead.

In 18 gallon pots anywhere else in my yard where I have room. I typically have:
Citrus trees in pots ( have about 14 citrus trees at my last count. I may have lost a few)
Bay leaf (2-5 gallon pots)
Peppers hot ( 1 gal up to 18 gallon pots for the larger and longer lived peppers)
eggplant 18 gallon max 2 plants are more than enough.
Green onion, garden and garlic chives in 1 gallon pots ( I usually have a few of them 3-5 pots)
Mint (in 14 inch bowls. They need to be contained. I have chocolate, peppermint, and spearmint)
Ginger, Jamaican, turmeric, galangal. Pots have to be wider than deep. Number of pots depend on the no. of roots I choose to keep.
Taro, araimo. 3 pots need to be both wide and deep. 3 gallon minimum
Pitaya. (well that one makes its own space. I just have to keep cutting it back and pulling it from the fence or it will try to escape to th neighbor's yard
Bittermelon ( its a weed in my yard. The birds bring the seeds)
Lavender. Would prefer to be in the ground, but I need to keep them in pots so I can move them out of the rain in the rainy season.
June- July- August. June possible to plant another crop of sweet corn. Otherwise, plants are taken out as they mature and the garden is left fallow for the summer. It is too hot to plant and costs too much to water it.
September- plant seeds of cool season crops broccoli (DeCicco, Italian Sprouting) so plants will mature in November. Side shoots can be harvested till May. Gobo needs to be planted in a tall tube to accommodate the 3 ft roots. Plant all root crops (beets, daikon, carrots, kohlrabi)
taro ( harvest and repot), turmeric (harvest and repot) Ginger will be harvested after it blooms (Sept-Nov)
Cool season crops can be planted Sept-May
Onions seeds start in September, Garlic chilled in July and planted October 25.
A third crop of tropical corn can still be planted in September.

Tomatoes are good for about 8 months if they are not overcome with disease
Chard and Kale are good for up to two years
Komatsuna one year.
Cutting celery , parsley, 2 years
Papaya 3 years or until the fruit cannot be reached
Eggplant 2-3 years. They do live longer, but production drops
Herbs : thyme, green onions, chives, ajaka basil, lemon grass, ginger, chilies are mostly grown in pots. Herbs tolerate pots well and they would take up a lot of space for a long time if left in the main garden.
I prefer to plant short crops 100 days or less and crops that do not take up a lot of space in the main garden.
I have grown carrots, but carrots and onions are not easy for me to grow, they take up a lot of space for a small yield. I am better off buying these and planting something else instead.
Squash and gourds need space on a fence or on the ground to ramble. I only grow these in my other garden plots that have more space for them and because they can usually take care of themselves for a long time.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

I think I have finally found something that can be planted in succession. Summer, 65, 72, 90, 110, day crops like, corn, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, can be replaced with cold weather crops like, carrots, garlic, broccoli, boc choy, cabbage here in TN. This might not work in other geographical locations north or south of 34° latitude. I have always thought my garden is wasted space growing 2 & 3 month crops in a 6 month growing season. I have tried growing 2 crops of, corn, beans, tomatoes but it is very hard to get seeds to grow in 100° hot blister sun they must be watered every day to germinate then water every day to grow plants that never grow large in 100° hot weather with no rain like they do in 65° cool spring weather with rain every day.
Last edited by Gary350 on Tue Jan 19, 2021 1:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
TomatoNut95
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2069
Joined: Sun May 26, 2019 11:11 am
Location: Texas Zone 8

Gary, try soaking your corn and bean seeds in water overnight or at least a few hours prior to planting. Soaking hard coated seed speads germination. This method works on okra as well.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Gary, corn here has the opposite problem, although we don't have a lot of 100 degree days, our short days are the main problem. Tropical corn can handle up to 100 degrees for a few days, but only require 12 hours of daylight. It is the only corn I can grow in the bookend seasons. During the main season from Mar 1 - August, is the only time I can grow the disease resistant (maize mosaic resistant) non tropical corn varieties like Silver Queen, Jubilee, Golden Bantam, Bodacious, Delectable, and Illini Xtra Sweet. The tropical corn varieties that are the most common here were developed at the U.H. by Dr. Brewbaker. These are UH supersweet no. 9 and no. 10 and are short day corn that can be planted on the bookend seasons and only need about 12 hours of daylight. Tropical corn will still need heavy irrigation but they can handle more heat than temperate corn.

It is possible to get 3 or maybe 4 plantings a year. The most I have been able to squeeze in have been three plantings of 80 day corn varieties, but it would take up all of my main garden space.

I tried to grow a 3 sisters garden, but the beans kept winding around the corn and tying up the leaves and the squash took over the garden and the surrounding area. Sunflowers do well with corn.

July and August is too hot and I mainly only harvest in those months and solarize the garden instead. I can still plant peppers and eggplant seeds in summer. Eggplant is productive for about 2 years and I only need one plant. Eggplant actually will live longer, but it only gets bigger and production declines as it ages. You could grow eggplant as it produces a lot of eggplant in a relatively short time and treat it as an annual or a pot plant. It does take 100-120 days to maturity so a long season is needed or keep the plants in pots to over winter. Once it goes into production here, it doesn't really stop.

There are only a few plants that I start in pots and transplant out as succession crops into the main garden. I think outside of the main garden box. Most of the large space consuming and longer lived plants are actually in pots. I can move the pots around and when they are small, they can be huddled closer together. As the plants get larger, I can move the pots apart and sometimes I can fit smaller pots between the larger pots. Things that do well in small pots like herbs and some perennial plants are kept in pots instead of taking up space in the main garden. Things that require special soil conditions like a deeper soil (root crops), more alkaline or wetter or drier soils are kept in pots. The invasive mints, ginger, fig, sweet potatoes, and taro are definitely pot candidates. Citrus trees are in pots, because it is the best way to keep them dwarfed.

I am still working on getting two different crops in my larger containers.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

TomatoNut95 wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:16 am
Gary, try soaking your corn and bean seeds in water overnight or at least a few hours prior to planting. Soaking hard coated seed speads germination. This method works on okra as well.
That is a good idea. I need to soak some corn seeds in the house to see how long it takes to germinate & I need to know if red color fungicide comes off. Then germinate a few more seeds & do some tests. I did a 100 count weight my corn seeds = 637 I only need 325.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Captan treated seeds don't usually keep well if they are older. A test germination is a good idea. Corn seeds lose viability very fast. I can get decent germination the second year, but really drops off the third year.

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

Does Tennessee have enough days with some rain and cooler weather after the heat of mid-summer to grow those cool season plants before fall frost? Some of those plants, might do okay if they can continue growing after frosts.

Carrot seed requires a couple of weeks to emerge and must be sown in very shallow drills. That leaves a lot of time for sunlight and dry air to toast seedlings. I have to be very careful about timing OR sow pelleted seed. That coating of clay works well however but this was for spring sowings.

Some plants can emerge and be stunted by heat. This was true for beets (which you didn't mention, Gary). I had hoped to use the beets primarily for late-season greens. With shriveled plants and cold weather damage, I failed to harvest anything from a summer sowing.

Steve

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

Imafan, in good probability, Native Americans were planting corn, bean and squash for fall harvest. The beans & corn were harvested as seed. This, at least, was what I came to suspect after trying to grow sweet corn and green beans - and trampling squash plants trying to harvest those ears of corn and beans.

Yes, the climbing beans interfered with the growth of the corn. After planting flour corn and waiting a couple of weeks before sowing bean seed while also putting a few tall stakes into the garden - the climbing Rattlesnake beans I planted didn't cause much of a problem.

The number of squash plants should be limited. They worked really well for weed suppression. So - I could stay out of that part of the garden for the months these 3 sisters were growing. The Rattlesnake bean seeds makes delicious soup, the winter squash did well. Flour corn was just a little bit of a bother but I learned that a blender did fairly well with seed soaked overnight, even tho I have never had a flour mill (& wouldn't know where to find stones for a stone mill ;)). The cornbread that I made was only a little coarse and it was very flavorful.

I did feel that quite a lot of my garden was "tied up" with the 3 Sisters but I'm not sure that was really true. I was, after all, growing 3 crops on that ground. Probably in 2021, I will realize that I have more ground than I need and be running irrigation on soil that I do not want left for weeds. It once again seems like I should invite the 3 Sisters back. I mean, the Rattlesnake beans are out there for soup beans and the winter squash are there, each year. May as well check on buying the flour corn seed :).

Steve

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

digitS' wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:28 pm
Does Tennessee have enough days with some rain and cooler weather after the heat of mid-summer to grow those cool season plants before fall frost? Some of those plants, might do okay if they can continue growing after frosts.

Carrot seed requires a couple of weeks to emerge and must be sown in very shallow drills. That leaves a lot of time for sunlight and dry air to toast seedlings. I have to be very careful about timing OR sow pelleted seed. That coating of clay works well however but this was for spring sowings.

Some plants can emerge and be stunted by heat. This was true for beets (which you didn't mention, Gary). I had hoped to use the beets primarily for late-season greens. With shriveled plants and cold weather damage, I failed to harvest anything from a summer sowing.

Steve
TN usually has rain almost every day Dec to May 15 it slows down then stops June 15th. Drought all summer until Nov. we get about 2 rains per month 5 to 10 minutes each July to Nov.

My best carrots are usually planted April 1st. Last frost is April 20. June 15 it will be 95°, July 4 98° and not much rain until Oct or Nov.

Beets grow good here but I have not grown them in 25 years. Beets are sweet as candy with a very good flavor. They taste nothing like horrible grocery store beets.

I like to plant, carrots, garlic, onions, in beds, 3ft wide 10ft long. I put a wooden frame around the bed to hold water. I have planted potatoes in beds too.

I bought a hand crank grinder to make corn meal & flour. It works good it takes 5 minutes to make enough corn meal for corn bread.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Manual-Corn-Gr ... Swk~peokcC

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

What can I plant in 18 gallon containers as companions.

I have 1 zucchini (need a companion)
I will have 4 cucumbers in another 18 gallon container that will be on a trellis
9 snow peas on a trellis about 4 ft tall now in an 18 gallon container.

I have a few empty 18 gallon containers to replant that I want to double crop. These are what I am going to plant in each container
1) 9 pole beans (caged)
2) 1 determinate tomato -Camaro (caged)
3) 9 yard long beans (trellised or caged)
4) undecided 18 gallon container. Can be with or without a trellis.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I am starting to transition from cool season to warm crops. I under planted the tomatoes with romaine lettuce and the cucumber with grand rapids lettuce.
I can probably get one more lot of cilantro in before it gets too hot. My second batch are starting to bolt now. I did not plant corn because the garden is occupied by the cabbages, so I planted more cabbage: bok choy, semposai, and gailan.

I have pulled out the carrots and reseeded the container with beets and chard.
The dwarf marigolds have been replaced with contender bush beans that are resistant to nematodes. The marigolds are still coming up so I have to pull them out.
Okra has replaced the zucchini
I can grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplant all year. Camaro tomatoes each have started to set their first fruit and I have 2 more cucumbers started. I need to start another heat resistant cucumber for summer.

It is still to cold to plant most of the hot peppers, but I have started to plant the sweet peppers since most of them can tolerate it a little colder.

I soaked the roselle, shiso, and suyo seeds overnight. The roselle sprouted and I planted them today. The shiso and suyo seeds are old. I don't have much hope for them but I will give them a go at test germination.

I found some rattlesnake beans. The seeds are about 5 years old. When I have more space I may do a test germination on them as well.

The snow peas are at the end of their course. I am still undecided what to plant in its place. I could do another cucumber, bean, squash, tomato or bitter melon. This pot is fitted with a trellis so I would like a vine crop to replace it. The upo and chayote will be too heavy for this trellis, but it might support a kabocha, butternut, or sugar baby watermelon.

The white flies and fruit flies did not take the season off. They have been making trouble with the fruit flies stinging the zucchini and the whiteflies on the gardenia, kale, and the Hibiscus. I cut back the hibiscus and gardenia to open them up and get rid of the most infested leaves and I am hosing them with water every time I water. They were also on the citrus trees and the leaves are yellow, but I have been hosing those down too and it is getting better.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I still have problem successfully doing succession planting on time and I still need to tweak the quantity and the times between succession planting. My plants are living longer than I anticipated, so I have to decide to pull them out to be on time with the next crop or be late for the succession crop. I aimed for 10 heads of lettuce at a time, but I may have to reduce that number to 4. I don't eat that much lettuce. Now, getting just four seeds to germinate reliably is a challenge.

The snails eating the seedlings are also messing up the timing since I have to replant and that changes when the next cycle can start.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

- Have you tried pre-germinating seeds in refrigerator? Only sow germinated seeds.
- Can you put the compots and cells in snail/slug-proof “cages” or maybe hanging pots? — since you are dealing with snails a mesh container with openings that exclude their shells should work (slugs can be trickier) …maybe picnic food protectors intended to keep out flying insects (I have a table-size pop up mini-screen tent with attached floor I use to start brassica seedlings that might work)
Image

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

No one in my family did succession planting so I never learned that growing up. For 40 years life was too fast to have time to learn gardening, work, kids, boy scouts, soccer, T ball, vacations, every day life, etc, I barely had time to plant seeds and harvest crops. There was no internet & books were not much help most were written how to grow a garden where the book author lived in his weather conditions. Now I am retired and have time to learn new things about the garden and have time to do new things in the garden.

Kennebec Potatoes, plant them March 1st in full shade. Hot sun sucks away all the moisture then you get small potatoes. These are a 4 month crop. Red potatoes out produce white potatoes 4 to 1.

Corn needs to be planted early and there are 72 day crops, 85 day crops, 92 day crops. I can plant a 92 day crop we have a 6 month growing season. Harvest is mid or late July. 92 day plants and ears are much larger than shorter day crops.

Beans can be planted any day of any month May to Sept they are a 65 day crop. Beans can be planted after, corn, melons, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers, okra. potatoes.

Peppers claim to be a 65 day crop but I plant them May 1st and never get a big harvest until colder weather in Oct. This is a dedicated row in my garden nothing else can be planted here.

Tomatoes are a 65 day crop but will produce tomatoes until Aug in TN. If I plant several times more plants then we need we can harvest a years supply of tomatoes for the pantry in 2 weeks. Other crops can be planted after tomatoes are gone in Aug, My tomatoes do best plants in full shade. If I plant new tomato plants from seeds 1st day of every month we can have ripe tomatoes until Thanksgiving & sometimes Christmas.

Onions sets are a 4 month crop that can be planted March 1st. Full sun all day is very important.

Melons love hot dry weather they need to be planted May 1st. & harvested Aug. If melons are allowed to grow until Nov this is a dedicated row too.

Garlic should be planted in TN Sept 1st then harvest is about May 15.

Cucumbers can be planted May 1st be sure to plant too many seeds about 50 plants to get a very BIG harvest very quick crop in 2 weeks before bugs kill the plants & cucumbers.

Sweet potatoes love hot dry weather plant slips May 1st harvest after frost kills the plants Nov 7. This is a dedicated row in the garden nothing else can be planted here.

Okra is slow growing at first then picks up speed first harvest is about Aug, then Sept there are more pods that a family can eat.

Sept is fall planting here, cabbage, greens, lettuce, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, Pac choy 65 day crop is ready to harvest quick before first frost.

If you graph this on paper you can see crops that come and go quick gives you time to plant another crop Aug or Sept.

When I lived in Phoenix AZ area the main garden was planted Oct, Nov, Dec. and 2nd garden started March 1st. Melons & sweet potatoes love 114 deg weather June to Aug but nothing else grew in 114 degree heat. Onions & garlic were easy to grow in winter.

Learn what your plants need, crop length, weather conditions, growing season, bugs & pests in your area. Each plant needs, different fertilizer, different soil, different weather.
Last edited by Gary350 on Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The snails are getting the seedlings in the main garden. It is hard to put barriers around that. The ones they ate in the pots are pots around the main garden. I have got a different snail bait that has a different carrier and hopefully won't be eaten by the birds or mice. They are the real cause of the snail bait disappearing after a day, so I don't get the full 2 week effectiveness. I have both slugs and snails, but right now the snails are the biggest problem. I may have to look for them at a different time, because I am not seeing that many when I go out to water, and I don't like to water in the dark. It would be hard to cover the seedlings in the main garden but it may be possible to put a screen on the pots. That's a good idea to try, Applestar. Today, I found they are now going for the Swiss chard and the pepper seedlings in the main garden. I did not see any snails today, but I don't see the sluggo bait either. I may have to set different traps. I haven't set a beer trap in years.

The only pots that have not been affected are on the other side of the garden. The cucumbers, carrots, pak choy, and Tokyo Bekana are so far all right. The birds are not eating the sluggo on that side of the yard. The seedlings in the tower and the compots are also fine. Sprouting seeds is not the problem so much as getting the seedlings to get past the snails once they start getting bigger. I did not find any snails in the green onions when I repotted them recently so I think they are fine too.

I think the snails are coming from the aloe and from the jungle under the plumeria trees. I regularly do find snails there and I bait those places as well. I only have a little bit of hair, but I might try to put what I have around the Aloe to try to keep the snails more contained. I also need to thin out the bromeliads under the plumeria so there will be fewer hiding places for the snails. That would be a big project. I only cleaned out a few and that took a while to separate the keiki from the old bromeliads.

I have broccoli, tomato, and komatsuna seedlings to plant, but I am going to keep them in pots a while longer since they have to go out to the main garden. Some of the tower pocket seedlings have died so, I will be replacing or reseeding those. I am getting succession, just not how I planned to do it.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I just planted my succession lettuce. I actually got them as a party favor from the garden Christmas party. They were perfect. I was just about to start succession seeds. I have also started the succession Soarer cucumber to replace one of the three cucumbers I have. I need to space them out so I don't get all the fruit at the same time, then have nothing for awhile. I have also planted more Swiss chard to replace my aging ones.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Bump :wink:

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I am starting another round of lettuce. The romaine is now pickable with 5 inch leaves and the Christmas lettuce is about half grown. It is time to start another handful of lettuce to replace them. I also have to start more cilantro. Two have already started to bolt and I cut back the younger ones to get them to bush out more.

I just took down one cucumber and that leaves 3 containers left but one is just starting to fruit. The other is mid way and the third one has a couple of fruit but the leaves are dying so I can start another set for one more container to replace the oldest cucumber pot I have. I will still be swimming in cucumbers, but at least I do like cucumbers as long as I don't get 6 a week.

I have some seedling peppers and Prospero basil and some bunching onions to pot up. I can put some of the peppers and one of the Prospero basil into the tower. The rest of the tower pockets I will either replant beans or more lettuce.

The snow peas are finally flowering. If I can find space and another large pot I could start more. I will have to decide soon because snow peas have such a short season here.

Once it warms up a bit more, I can restart more of the pepper seeds. I have some seedling peppers I planted earlier that need to be potted up and I did plant pepper seeds in the tower when I planted the lettuce, they are growing very slowly.

I planted the new Dunja. The old plant is still alive. It must have rooted along the 10 ft
stem. It is still flowering and putting out fruit. Between the old Dunja and Partenon they have 3 fruit each that thankfully are spaced enough so they won't be coming in on the same day.

One of my tomatoes definitely shows signs of TYLCV. It is still producing fruit and it is tolerating the virus, but it has to come out anyway. I do have another red currant that is healthy and virus free so I will save seeds from that one.

This plant that has the virus is a volunteer. I have not had problems with red currant, but it might have crossed or just not have as much resistance as its predecessor.

Vanisle_BC
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1354
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:02 pm
Location: Port Alberni, B.C. Canada, Zone 7 (+?)

Hey imafan, you've just posted to a topic which I started but now can't access. What a hoot!

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It must be serendipity.

Vanisle_BC
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1354
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:02 pm
Location: Port Alberni, B.C. Canada, Zone 7 (+?)

I've never tried serendipity. Do you grow it from seed? :D

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

In succession plantings it is sometimes a gamble. Sometimes the plants hang on longer in the garden than I expect them to and I have seedlings in pots that need to go somewhere.

Or, like now, one of the broccoli I harvested started to die off. I expected more side shoots. So now I have a hole in the garden and the replacement semposai barely has two leaves.

I start most of my succession crops in compots 2-3 weeks before I need them to go out. I have a lot of plants in containers and some things like to be direct seeded, like carrots and cilantro, so I have multiple containers that finish at different times so I just rotate from container to container as one thing ends and I start the next one.

This is how I do beans, peas, most of the cucumbers. I have large containers that I will direct seed and when they start to flower, I will start the next replacement container for a more or less continuous harvest. Although, I end up with a week or two gap between harvests. Usually, that is o.k. I get tired of eating the same things every week and can use a break sometimes. The beans come all at once. I miscalculated the last time and the beans (different varieties with different days to harvest) still came in around the same time. I need to take into account not only the planting times, but also the days to maturity of different cultivars.

In other compots, more seedlings came up than I anticipated, so I will have to find homes for the extra seedlings. And some of them came up faster than I wanted them to. I have to decide where to put them or what to pull out to make space for them.

Sometimes, I have to make the hard choice. If I plant my succession crop of cucumbers for instance, I have to choose to pull out the old ones even though they may still be flowering and producing.

I did solve my corn dilemma. Every year, to start my corn off so I can maximize the corn harvest, I start the first corn plants on March 1. The last few years, I have had broccoli and Asian cabbages in the garden that weren't quite ready to come out on March 1. Although I like corn and none of it will go to waste. It takes up a lot of space for the amount of yield I get.

The last few years, I did not plant corn and just planted the higher yielding Asian greens instead.

Last year, I had a mouse. I went to Walmart and bought corn seeds off the rack. Early Sunglow, to bait the trap. The mouse or rat managed to take the bait 3 times and never set off the trap. What can I say, this is why I keep cats, but my cats are indoors.

Needless to say. I had a few leftover corn seeds and decided to just plant them between the plants already in the garden. I did not expect much, but they did actually produce about 20 ears of corn. Early Sunglow is not a supersweet corn so it is not a really sweet corn, but honey butter fixed that.

It was a lucky accident I guess. This year, I may do that more purposefully, and plant the corn between my existing crops and see what happens when I use the UH no. 9 or 10. The normal plan has been to plant 3 rounds of corn in summer and it is followed with Asian greens in the cooler months. I do have long lived crops: cutting celery, aloe, ajaka basil, a couple of peppers, Swiss Chard, Perpetual Spinach and kale which all live over a year in the garden as well. But, have planted those planted on the edges and I always planted the corn around them.

The bigger problem I have with succession planting besides timing is getting the quantity right. I over plant some seeds because germination can be slow and not every thing survives. Then, I have leftover seedlings I have to re-home or cull.

The other problem is space allocation in the garden. I really only need one of each kind of kale lacinato, curly vates, and Russian. That is the easy one. Much harder to determine and get the number of lettuce to plant every 2-3 weeks. Most of the time I aim for 8-10 plants, but I don't like a lot of raw vegetables so sometimes even that is too much. Lettuce is strictly a fall and winter crop for me. It bolts and is tough and bitter in the summer. Asian greens last longer, but the mini bok choy and beets even harvested all at once sometimes only are enough for one dish once they are cooked down.

Then there is cilantro. I have a container now. It is not that much, less than
2 sq feet. But, now the cilantro is ready and I have to keep clipping it so it won't bolt, but I don't have a lot of uses for it and it does not keep well. It is easy to give away though. It is also a crop that when I could use it in May, it will be too hot to grow.
I do grow culantro which has a taste similar to cilantro and can be made into a paste as a substitute and it is used in Vietnamese cuisine. It makes a good herb to add to Pho. Culantro likes pretty much to be in a shady swamp, but it is available all year.

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

It sounds like a real garden with such a variety of different species in a year around garden, Imafan26.

Interplanting with corn - certainly could work and makes sense although it would require some special care to be sure that the plants stay close enough so as to ensure good pollenization.

It seems as though you have a garden that you could spend a lot of time in through the year just to enjoy the environment. Also, a place where you should spend time so as to maximize the use of the space as it becomes available and apparent. I'm not sure how I would behave in such an environment - frolicking, perhaps ;).

Steve

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

I made a flow chart to see if I can learn to do succession planting.

Corn, beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, are determinate crops.

I can plant beans after onions June 20.

I can plant beans after corn Aug 1st.

I could plant beans after potatoes Aug 1st.

Beans always do much better planted May 10 than June 20 in hot dry 100°f weather.

Strawberries are a dedicated crop year round.

Tomatoes, peppers, melons, are indeterminate they grow until frost kills them Nov 1st.

I plant 2 tomato plants from seeds every month all summer anywhere I can find space.

I give up trying to grow greens our spring goes from 32°f to 100°f in 6 weeks all I get is seed tops.

I planted beans last year and they all went to the compose pile, we ate none of them. Wife can't eat beans, I would rather have Beans, not green beans. Dry beans at the grocery store are $1 per lb. Great value beans in a can are 80 cents per can. I eat a lot of can beans.

Click picture it gets larger and easier to read. Anything planted from seeds can't be planted until soil is warm 65°f about May 10.
Attachments
100_6815.JPG
Last edited by Gary350 on Mon Jan 16, 2023 1:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

A chart is a good idea. I plant the same things so I just remember the dates. I put information on the plant tags about when I planted things. I have a garden book, but I use it for unusual notes or notes about new varieties, but I don't use the tags or the notes for planning. It is probably a better idea if I put it all in a plan. That way, I would also have alternatives. My planting dates are more flexible since there is no frost date to use as a marker. It might work better for me to use temperature instead of month. Things have been blooming out of season because of climate change, so the normal planting months aren't normal anymore.

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

A flow chart would be a good idea but mine would be a bit of a "wok through the year," with all the greens being planted :). And yeah, it's usually a skillet used for our stir-fries.

Temperatures? How about sunlight? What, no planting by moon phase :D? I'm sure pleased that I see little about that these days and being left so often confused about how and why that might work.

Last year, following the days on the calendar and habits, succession planting worked out poorly. With solar energy having more and more importance, there must be ways to measure sunlight. Here, we had so much cloud cover coming in during the early weeks from the Pacific (hundreds of miles away) that the spring pea vines took too long to produce so that bush beans could follow them in that ground.

Then, excessive HEAT during mid-Summer completely stymied a late planting of broccoli for a fall crop. The plants were barely able to survive and only about 10% could produce buds. The very mild September and October made for an opportunity to grow some lettuce even if it wasn't enough to save the broccoli. Frost and snow (that's still around) came simultaneously as we moved into November. So much cloud cover early, excessive heat and dry, mild Autumn - all this together - quite unusual!

Steve

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

digitS' wrote:
Mon Jan 16, 2023 8:07 am
A flow chart would be a good idea but mine would be a bit of a "wok through the year," with all the greens being planted :). And yeah, it's usually a skillet used for our stir-fries.

Temperatures? How about sunlight? What, no planting by moon phase :D? I'm sure pleased that I see little about that these days and being left so often confused about how and why that might work.

Last year, following the days on the calendar and habits, succession planting worked out poorly. With solar energy having more and more importance, there must be ways to measure sunlight. Here, we had so much cloud cover coming in during the early weeks from the Pacific (hundreds of miles away) that the spring pea vines took too long to produce so that bush beans could follow them in that ground.
Steve
There is a lot of research data online about planting by the moon. Nova TV show did a 1 hour show about planting by the moon. Research has proven crops need to mature when the moon is dark to have the largest harvest. If you plant 90 day corn during a dark moon harvest will be during a dark moon so you get the largest harvest. Beans are a 65 day crop harvest during a dark moon you get the best harvest. Maybe that is why my tomato harvest is up down up down up down up down for 4 months? Research also proved planting north/south rows produced larger crops than east/west rows. North/south rows get sunlight on both sides of the plants. East west rows don't get sun on the north side of the plants, about 1/2 of the plant leaves make chlorophyl.

Research showed a farmer that plants 2000 acres north south rows can have a $10,000. increase in profit for his $500,000. crop, but home gardeners will not notice their 25 cent increase of corn or beans. East/west rows can suffer from, mildew, mites, bugs and other things caused by too much shade on the north side of plants. I plant my garden with north/south rows. I don't worry about moon signs, maybe I should?

Do Google search for, Planting north/south rows vs east/west rows. Planting during a Dark Moon.

You can measure sunlight with a photographic light meter. TN sky is about 50% clouds in summer. It is rare for TN to have no clouds. When I lived in AZ there was no clouds. When I lived in IL sky had a few clouds but not many in summer.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Actually, I have done moon planting. Basically plant above ground crops when the moon is waxing and below ground crops when the moon is waning. New moon: don't plant anything.

My day length varies by about 2 hours all year. While some things will grow slower in the months with shorter days,and some things like lettuce, root crops, corn are sensitive to day length, it is mainly temperature that controls germination and growth rate.

I tried planting peppers earlier. It took longer to germinate and grew very slow, same thing happened with corn. I planted the same variety on March 1. It is the usual day I start all warm season crops. and they sprouted faster and out grew the older seedlings in a shorter time. It might actually be a combination of more light and warmer temperatures. Lettuce only grows well during the cooler months but it definitely grows slower and matures later Nov-Mar. The fastest growth is April and May when it is warmer and the days are longer. By May the temperatures can be in the mid 80's though which causes non heat tolerant lettuce to tip burn and bolt faster.

Some things like garlic, I figured out the best day to plant is Oct 25. It can still be hot and muggy then, but if there is a cold front coming by the temperature will get milder, but the next couple of weeks it can be hot again. Garlic will do better when the temperatures are only cooling when planting.

Ginger is easier to grow because it will tell me when it is ready. I harvest ginger after it blooms which can be anytime Sept-November and the tops start to dry. The roots are kept in a container with some damp potting soil or sand usually in the shade. I don't want it to get too much rain and rot the roots. It will start to sprout when it is ready to be replanted in March or April. Taro and sweet potatoes do something similar. When they are ready to harvest the leaves start to yellow. They have to be harvested. Sweet potatoes will make one giant root and not much else and the taro will start to throw keikis and the mother bulb will be consumed and rot.

Many other things will just sprout when it is time. I usually don't replant nasturtiums,they come up when they are ready. Tomatoes, peppers, cabbages , basil, etc. reseed. Usually the birds plant the tomatoes, peppers, and papaya so they come up all over the place. Papaya will not germinate in cold soils and neither will some of the super hot peppers. These things in particular want the temperature to be around 80 for the best germination.

Shiso and roselle are temperature sensitive. They will bloom and die once it gets below 75. I thought green onions bloomed because of age, but I found the younger ones also bloomed so it is actually cold that makes them bloom. So, now if they bloom, I don't assume the plant is old because it will still be productive for a long while.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I have most of my plant in containers. In the main garden I mainly plant green crops cabbage, mustard, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, radish, cilantro in the cooler months. Kale, chard, perpetual spinach, and cutting celery grow year round for me. I also grow cucumber, tomato, peppers, eggplant and most of the herbs year round and many of them will live multiple years. In summer I will grow corn in the main garden. I found that I can interplant the corn among the cole crops and it still works out. The cole crops will be mostly done (except for the kale) by May. That is actually my fallow period because it is too hot for most crops and that is when I solarize or amend the garden. The only other things that do well in the heat are roselle, okra, and long beans.

I have had the nutrient imbalance issues in the containers, so now, I have to think more about succession planting and not just intercropping in the containers. I need to follow tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas with root crops and other crops that will use more phosphorus. I should chop and drop in the main garden since I am doing no til, but I need to have a net loss of nutrients. That is why, I had to put all the cornstalks in the green bin because I cannot use it as mulch or till it back into the garden. I could only give a little of it to the worms. Taro has actually done well in the old soil because it is a high phosphorus feeder. I just don't want that much taro around. I can plant sweet potatoes as an alternative root crop, but it does take a long time to mature and it is attracts sweet potato white fly and is an alternate host for TYLCV.

I am finding I have to fertilize more because the kmag and nitrate does not last long in the containers. I don't have a zero phosphorus slow release fertilizer available to me.

I have to rotate some containers because of fertilizer issues, but I also rotate varieties. I have tomato, pepper, cucumber. and zucchini varieties that have more fungal and bacterial spot resistance for growing in the fall when the weather is cooler and wetter. I have more heat resistant varieties of the tomatoes, cucumber, and peppers that grow better in the summer heat.

Things lie roselle, corn, shiso, sweet potato, ginger, okra actually need the heat and longer days to grow well.

If I have issues with some plants with disease pressure, I tried rotating out up to three years for tomatoes. However, it doesn't work well since I don't have a winter to kill the alternate hosts or the vectors. So, I have to mainly use resistant cultivars and switching pots so things are not grown in the same pot if there are issues. It is also why I grow mainly Holy basil and African basils because they are resistant to basil downy Mildew. I grew Pesaro basil this year and while it looks like sweet basil it does not taste like it, but it is the most resistant "sweet" basil developed by Rutgers yet. My yard is so small moving things twenty feet won't make that much of a difference if it is a vector borne disease. It is also why I am using more physical barriers to protect the plants.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Harbor Freight sells a 120 volt chopper device that sets on a, 5 gallon bucket, or 30 gallon trash can or 55 gallon barrel push corn stalks into the chopper 1 by 1 they get cut into tiny pieces. Corn will compost much better when cut in small pieces.

Sweet potato vines can be sprouted in pots same as strawberry runners. YouTube videos shows commercial growers harvest sweet potatoes when potatoes reach a certain size about 6" to 7" long about 4 month crop. I always let frost kill sweet potato plants, potatoes are much larger 8" to 10" potatoes 6 month crop. Sweet potato leaves are very good greens.

Plant tomato seeds every 2 months all summer, when plants are 4 months old and 6 ft tall it is best for me to replace them. Now we have no children at home to eat all those tomatoes we don't need many tomatoes.

I have stopped planting things that attract bugs to the entire garden. Squash and cucumbers are bug magnets in TN. Plants often had no squash, bugs killed the plants then whole garden is infested with stink bugs.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I don't have a tractor supply or harbor freight around here. I also don't have a compost pile. I only keep worms so it isn't a problem to have to chop everything small. I thought about getting a chipper, but I really don't need it.

I grow sweet potatoes year round, but I find that they take longer to grow in the cooler months and there aren't that many potatoes, so not really cost effective to grow roots year round. I do have the table sweet potatoes year round because those are grown for the leaves.

If I don't plant zucchini near cucumbers or bitter melon, there are fewer problems. Zucchini is what attracts the bugs. The biggest problem besides nutrition is pickleworms. I have fruit fly traps year round so they are much less of an issue. The pickleworms are controlled with Bt and bagging the fruit. If they become a bigger issue, I just don't plant cucumbers for about 6 months and then they go somewhere else.

If I change the potting soil every time, I can plant successively in the same pot, but getting fertilizer is becoming a problem and there is a problem of disposing of the soil. I still haven't figured out the fertilizer. I can't fertilize just once anymore using the kmag, sulfate of ammonia, calcium nitrate. I haven't figured out how often and I still have to use some of the citrus fruit fertilizer even though it has phosphorus because it is has micros. I have to replace some of the soil in the pots with compost to avoid some of the micro deficiencies, but it adds to the phosphorus problem.

Even when I plant cucumber or tomatoes, I try not to put the same type of plants together. I try to separate them by 10 or 20 ft. That way if they do have issues, it won't necessarily transmit so easily to the other containers. I usually put 4 cucumbers in a pot, and I usually have 3 containers with 1-4 vines in them, but I have learned if I don't want to be inundated with cucumbers, I need to plant the containers at least 3-4 weeks apart. One container takes about 50 days to flower and produces for about 6 weeks.

I have to do the same thing with lettuce. I don't eat a lot of lettuce and if they mature all at once I can't finish them so I plant about 6 heads of lettuce every three weeks during the cooler months. They don't do well in summer.

It takes a lot of bok choy to make a meal, so I can plant a bigger patch of them. I also have takers for bok choy, but not so much for komatsuna. Komatsuna is ready in 40 days, but it will live longer so I will get multiple harvests from them. Komatsuna, semposai, broccoli, and kale are all big plants so I only have a few of them 1-3 plants but I can get multiple harvests from them.

I get multiple harvests from chard, perpetual spinach, eggplant, pepper, tomatoes, and herbs so I don't need as many plants and most of them are in containers or the perimeter of the main garden so I don't have to work around them succession planting cole crops in the main garden. Some peppers, eggplant, kale, perpetual spinach, chard will live more than a year.

Tomatoes live 6-9 months so I don't need more that three plants and I only succession plant tomatoes because in summer only the most heat tolerant tomatoes will continue to produce. I have to grow the less heat tolerant tomatoes between September and June. They will just stop producing once the temperature gets above 85 degrees. The bigger problem with tomatoes are disease resistance so I have to use barriers on the tomatoes which means that I now plant more determinate tomatoes and they need to have TYLCV resistance or planted in insect bags because I have white flies year round as well as alternate hosts (sweet potato, beans, cabbage, peppers, eggplant)

I do the same with cucumbers, I switch to more heat tolerant varieties of cucumber in the summer. Although, most of the cucumbers I grow will still produce year round even in the summer heat.

It is harder to succession plant in the tower since, I have to take the tower apart, remove the roots and replace the soil, and it is easier to do that if I take it all apart rather than have to take off 3 tiers of plants to get to the 4th tier. In the tower, the larger plants are on the bottom. Usually they are the longest lived plants. Right now I have alliums in the bottom tier, but the upper tiers have sporadic empty pockets that I have to redo. I have grown swiss chard and pak choy, kale, Tokyo bekana, and peppers in the tower. But the kale takes up all of the root space so nothing grows in the other 5 pockets and Chard and bekana get tight in the pocket, so it is more suitable for planting lettuce, bush beans (bush beans will be bigger in the ground or a larger pot), baby bok and plants that basically will mature in 50 days or less or don't require a massive root space.



Return to “Vegetable Gardening Forum”