imafan26
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Re: Succession planting strategies

Since you are in Canada and have a covered space, you might be able to grow a few frost tolerant plants like kale, broccoli, carrots, garlic over winters and comes up in Spring in cold country, for me I plant it in the fall and harvest in early summer. It will grow the entire time. However, I do have to have the short day variety.

Vanisle_BC
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Thanks rainbow for the pictures of your handsome and robust raised beds. Mine are 2x6 or 2x8 boards on 2x4 frames; all of it rough red cedar, some scavenged at the local mill-yard. I'm not sure what the price of 4x4s is, but at the time I built most of my beds I'd have been reluctant to buy them; still may not do that. At my age most things won't have to last more than 10 years, by which time if I'm still around I probably won't be gardening anyway. But we'll see; I do have one bed that's falling apart. I'll either have to replace it or dismantle what's left of it. I have four 16-20 ft. beds forming a rectangle with a couple of ground-level beds inside it. There are removable mesh "fences" - upward extensions - on the outside of the beds to keep the bunnies from jumping into/over them. If I do away with one bed I'll have to replace it with a proper fence. Hard to describe but it's all so improvised and ill-maintained I'd be embarrassed to post pictures :).

imafan, you haven't been paying attention!! (But thanks for the advice.) Yes I do overwinter quite a lot of garlic as well as carrots, kale, Walla Walla onions and purple sprouting broccoli. Here on the W. coast it's not seriously cold (well, maybe compared with Hawaii :)). We do get frost, sometimes hard frost, but it seldom gets anywhere close to zero F. I used to live deep inland 500 miles north where minus 40 (the same in both scales) and even a bit worse was not uncommon. Didn't garden there although it's possible.

xtron
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following mid july harvested garlic.....have you considered cabbage or brussel sprouts? you will have to start them inside in the air conditioning as they don't like hot soil. but both do well in cool weather, especially the sprouts. I plant mine in the spring and they do little or nothing all summer. but as soon as the weather cools, they go nutz, and I harvest well into December.
cabbage will grow until the snow buries it.

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rainbowgardener
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Also, when I lived in Cincinnati, zone 6, I would do a late planting of spinach and broccoli seeds, like mid to late October. My first frost date there was also mid October. All you need is them to be in soon enough that they are well sprouted before the ground freezes. They would get a few inches tall and then just sit there all winter, covered in snow and ice (I never even covered them.) In late winter, when the ground thawed, they would start growing again. It was the best spinach crop I ever had. I would be eating the late planted spinach by the time the spring planted seeds were going in. And it would keep going. The late planted and spring planted spinach would bolt about the same time, when the weather warmed up. That means the late planted was producing a lot longer and got a lot bigger.

Vanisle_BC
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xtron, rainbow:

Useful comments/suggestions - thanks. This year, hereabouts, July was very hot. I had started cabbage (now consumed but regrowing) & B. sprouts (growing well now) earlier in the year. Cabbage I usually uproot but this time I cut the stems to harvest it. New leaves are growing; I don't suppose the plants will produce a new head? Romaine lettuce I treated the same way, seems to have quite bitter new leaves. But I digress (again.) I could start plants indoors for planting out in midsummer but I guess I'd have to raise them under lights - don't have a cool place other than my no-windows workshop. How far ahead of planting-out would be recommended for indoor sowing?

I haven't been much of a spinach grower. Thanks for the information. I may try overwintering it. The broccoli you overwintered, rainbow: was it a specific O/W variety or just a "regular" broccolli?

imafan: You mention short-day garlic. I've never heard of that? Mine is harvested mid-July.

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rainbowgardener
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Just regular broccoli. The spinach is a bit hardier for over-wintering. Not all of the broccoli made it thru, depending on severity of the winter, but some did. I bet it would have done even better if I had covered it.

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digitS'
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I don't have answers to some of your questions, Vanisle_BC.

I once said on a forum that spinach was a little difficult and disappointing in my garden. An astute commenter pointed out that southern Washington State is the source of much of the nation's spinach seed. I don't really know where someone would find that information but I was able to "round out" what I meant. Spinach seed would be easy for me to grow. The plants are on a flowering and seed producing trajectory from the moment they emerge from the soil .... it really isn't quite that bad but when the dry and hot weather arrives, they bolt.

Something I really should try is overwintering spinach as RG has done. Clean cultivation in the fall has been my habit for many years ... however ... a spinach relative shows up in the spring as a volunteer. Orach. And I now have both red orach and purple. In salads, I like it even better than spinach.

Now, where was I? Oh yes! After you have cut your cabbage head, watch more leaf buds develop. You will probably want to limit them to 3 or 4. The plant has big roots and can do okay with about 4 and they really should amount to something more than a Brussels sprout. Just look on them as something to eat and cut them when your resistance begins to weaken ...

;) Steve

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applestar
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Just look on them as something to eat and cut them when your resistance begins to weaken ...
I loved that, digit'S :D Soooo true for many harvesting moments. :lol:

imafan26
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When I plant garlic I have a similar problem. It is not compatible with a lot of other plant and it takes up a lot of space for a long time. I am thinking of putting it in with my ornamental border. It might be a bonus as a pest deterrent.

xtron
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if you have a strawberry bed, interplant garlic with it. they really like each other.
my strawberry bed became infested with creeping Charlie this year, to the point I had to move th bed.
of the 200 or so plants I transplanted, as soon as they were done bearing, around 20 actually survived. not only did they survive, they bloomed and set berries...then sent out runners...lots of runners. yesterday I planted the cloves of 4 garlic in and around the new bed. I should have lots of new plants and lots of garlic next year.
oh.. the creeping Charlie was tilled, hoed and mulched into oblivion. it's the devils own favorite weed and I take no prisoners.

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xtron; a funny coincidence that you should mention interplanting garlic with strawberries. Just today I dug up all the strawberries in one 4x3.5' section of raised bed, to make room for garlic. This was a very overcrowded strawberry bed that seldom produced much and I've started a more open one next door to it. I don't have much experience with the berries and have never had a great harvest. All advice about maintaining strawberry beds in production is welcome. Spacing, removal of daughter plants, etc.

Are you saying you plant garlic randomly in among established strawberries, or around the edges, or ...? The garlic I'm putting into the just-cleared bed will be too much, too densely concentrated, for interplanting but I'm interested to hear how you do it.

This year I have garlic rounds grown from last year's bulbils. I hope to grow those out over winter to get bulbs/cloves for next year's seed, while growing new rounds from this year's bulbils. Cloves from this year's mature harvest will also be grown over winter to supply next year's kitchen, but I won't have to grow extra, as I usually do, in order to have seed for next year. That will come from the rounds I plant now. I hope all that makes sense when it's written down!? Had trouble figuring it out myself. This will be a whole new strategy for me. The main reason I'm doing it, is to reduce the space my garlic takes up, while maintaining the yield. And just because it will be interesting :).

The first lot of bulbils were generously sent to me by another member. Won't give his name in case he gets too many requests :)

The "devil's own favourite weed" for me is not Creeping Charlie (sounds like a guy I used to know) but Morning Glory. I've finally used R****-*p on it - it never reached my food-growing areas - much against my inclination; but after years of fighting it unsuccessfully, what a relief now, to see it's gone!

Sometimes you just have to do what you just have to do?

xtron
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if you look in an established bed you will usually find small empty spots. that is where I put garlic in the original bed. trouble is the berries over grew the garlic and I lost track of where it was, so harvesting was real iffy.
the new bed is smaller, at the moment, so a row of garlic was planted along each side. IF I can keep the berries from over running the rows, I should be able to harvest the garlic and replant the next years crop. it SHOULD be as easy as removing any runner sets and moving them outside the garlic rows. hopefully.....

the creeping Charlie that invaded the berry bed jumped the fence from the yard. that was dealt with by a couple of liberal application of 2-4D. r***d** is reserved for extreme last ditch desperation this works or we burn it down to the ground and start over situations.
now I'm dealing with the ground ive that has replaced the devil weed....not nearly as aggressive or pernisious.

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jal_ut
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"Do you practice succession planting?" Nope! here in high dry Utah, we get about 4 months growing time. Not really enough for succession planting.

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rainbowgardener
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Here's the succession in one of my beds;
combined photo horizontal.jpg
(click to enlarge)

I didn't get the earliest picture in the combined photo. Here it was Feb 22:
Feb 22--spring planting.jpg
Chard was well started and garlic had overwintered from the previous fall. Peas were planted on the A frame and against the fencing. So it starts with chard, garlic, peas, then broccoli and kale are added. By June the garlic and peas are done and the greens are huge. No August picture, but by Aug all that was cleared out and squash and green beans were planted. In Sept, broccoli seed was planted. By the time the broccoli needs space, the green beans and squash will be done. Then I will add garlic and/or onions back in.

Late Oct, I will plant more broccoli seed to over winter. Broccoli and garlic should make it through winter.

I'm working on keeping stuff growing year round, now that I am in zone 7.

As shown in the last picture, beans are going crazy right now. So all told, over the course of a year, that is a whole bunch of food to come from one 8x4 patch! To me, this is the secret of getting a lot of food from a small piece of ground -- keep it busy all the time!

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digitS'
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I really like that, RainbowGardener!

I'm only in most of the garden for about 6 months and there is a 5 month frost-free season here, or nearly. I set up a couple of temporary hoop houses here at home. Part of the frames stay year round but they are only covered with plastic film for a couple of months. Then, they revert to open garden beds.

Yes, some garden plants occupy their ground for an entire season. Many do not and there is an opportunity for plant life on that ground to produce in another cycle.

I'm tempted to set up the hoop houses again at this time of year. However, it is not just protection from cold that must be accounted for. At this latitude, the winter sun stays close to the horizon and there are few hours of light.

Steve

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jal_ut
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"Do you practice succession planting?"

NO!

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This off season, I am going to try a different type of succession planting - something I got the idea for while getting my cuttings of basil ready for rooting.

One basil that I love, but it has a bolting problem, is lemon basil. Once it bolts, there is little harvest left; unlike some basils, even with all of the flowered stems cut off, it won't come back, in all of the times I have tried, and the two varieties I've tried seemed the same. So I am going to take some cuttings, before it bolts, and root them, to get some plants started, which will hopefully be producing by the time the original one bolts, and I'll repeat this, several times, as needed. I'll let you know if it works.

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applestar
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Aw. I think mine all bolted already. I'll have to see if there are any that haven't. But I don't have the fantastic rooting system you have so I'm not as confident of the outcome even if I tried. It might just be my techniques. Looking forward to hearing how yours turn out. 8)

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applestar wrote:......I don't have the fantastic rooting system you have so I'm not as confident of the outcome even if I tried. It might just be my techniques. Looking forward to hearing how yours turn out. 8)
Dave, can you give a link or reference to the rooting system applestar mentions; and yes, please do let us know how your experiment turns out.

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rainbowgardener
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Vanisle_BC wrote:
applestar wrote:......I don't have the fantastic rooting system you have so I'm not as confident of the outcome even if I tried. It might just be my techniques. Looking forward to hearing how yours turn out. 8)
Dave, can you give a link or reference to the rooting system applestar mentions; and yes, please do let us know how your experiment turns out.
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=73424&p=414838#p414838

this shows his nice little system for rooting multiple cuttings.

pepperhead212
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Vanisle_BC wrote:
applestar wrote:......I don't have the fantastic rooting system you have so I'm not as confident of the outcome even if I tried. It might just be my techniques. Looking forward to hearing how yours turn out. 8)
Dave, can you give a link or reference to the rooting system applestar mentions; and yes, please do let us know how your experiment turns out.
That cloner I have is a Daisy Cloner, which I got way back when it was about the only small one on the market. It has been discontinued, and there are much better ones now.

Here are a couple of old photos from some rooted cuttings. The first is a serrata basil after 8 days:
Image012 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And here is a peppermint cutting after 6 days, and it has 2 runners, along with all those roots!
Image011 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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jal_ut
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" The worse thing you can do to your plants is water them it makes them grow surface roots that become dependent on your water."

Here in high dry Utah we irrigate. Some years we don't get any rain for the months of June, July and August. At my current location the water comes from a reservoir up the canyon, around a canal then into a pipeline. There is enough pressure in the pipeline at my location to support rainbirds, so the garden gets a weekly sprinkling of 12 hours which puts a little over an inch of water on the whole area. So don't tell me to not water the plants.

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rainbowgardener
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Yup, you have to do what works in your conditions. James doesn't do much succession planting, because of his incredibly short growing season. I am blessed with a very long season. My second planting of corn, even though it got planted much later than I hoped, is in tassel, and my third planting is knee high.

imafan26
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I do some succession planting, but sometimes the timing isn't just right and the plants are ready before I have the space or they grow slower in the winter months than the summer months. A lot of things in my garden will produce for a long time, so sometimes, I just have to decide when to cut them off. I usually plant 2 or 3 cycles of corn from March 1- September (if I take the broccoli out earlier.) I follow corn with Asian greens and I use them as nutrient scavengers. Some things like tomatoes will produce for up to 9 months before the diseases get them. I don't always rotate, but if the tomatoes have had a lot of problems with tomato yellow curl virus, then I will rotate out of tomatoes for a year or two. I usually rotate tomatoes with beans, peas, or cucumbers since I can use the tomato trellis for the other crops. I did find out the hard way that pole beans and beets don't get along and neither do kale and strawberries. Roses are good with onions.

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jal_ut
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"Do you practice succession planting? By which I mean:
- Stretching the harvest by planting more of the same later, or when you lift something,
- Following one crop with a different one in the same place (maybe including green manures/ground covers.)"

NO!

pepperhead212
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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.

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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.

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Gary350
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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.

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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.

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Gary350
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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.

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TomatoNut95
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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.

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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.

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Gary350
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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
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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.

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digitS'
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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

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digitS'
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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

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Gary350
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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
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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
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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
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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.



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