By August your garden should be producing and providing you with a delicious harvest. It is so fun and rewarding to watch something you grow from seed, or transplant, flourish and provide you with food to eat or preserve. Cucumbers, beans, peas, lettuce, kale, are coming out of the garden daily this time of year. We put a lot of thought into planning our garden in the spring, but the same time can also be given to succession planting for fall crops.
If some of your crops that have been steadily producing, start looking like they are struggling, it may be time to pull them and plant something new. You can also try planting seeds around some of your established plants that will be finished soon. My peas this year were beautiful and delicious earlier in the season, but are soon finished and will be ready to be pulled.
You are going to want to pay attention to the maturity dates on the back on the seed packets, but there are some plants that like cooler temperatures and are quick to produce. If you are wanting to do some succession planting for fall crops, you could consider planting radishes, arugula, mesclun mix, beets, lettuce and beans.
There are also cool weather crops that actually do well when the temperature starts to dip. Some of these can even tolerate a light frost. You can plant things like broccoli, kale, cabbage and carrots now to enjoy a fall harvest.
You can watch our Facebook Live from the Wile’s Lake Farm Market greenhouse, where we talk about succession planting for fall crops.
Niki Jabbour’s book, The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live, is a great resource to consult if you are considering succession planting for fall or planting cool weather crops. Niki is a Maritime gardener who also hosts a weekend radio show called The Weekend Gardener on Radio 95.7.
Elspeth and I were interviewed on her show back on July 30th, talking about the blog and our Grow with Me and Wile’s Lake Farm Market series. It was great to meet Niki and our conversation about blogging, social media and gardening, was a lot of fun.
I’m really curious, if you do any succession planting? Are you planning now for a fall harvest? Leave a comment and let me know what you plant this time of year! 🙂
“Grow with Me and Wile’s Lake Farm Market” is sponsored by Wile’s Lake Farm Market located in Wileville, Nova Scotia. Wile’s Lake Farm Market still has a wide variety of seeds available for succession planting for fall. Their knowledgeable staff is also available to answer any questions you may have.
Love this article on succession planting. We are hoping to buy a country property soon and when we do we are hoping to put in a big garden.
How exciting! Dreaming and planning are so much fun. 😊 My garden brings so much joy.
I currently have a second crop of green and yellow string beans that were planted on August 1. They are coming along fine and look great. I’ve never planted a second crop of beans before and am looking forward to see if they mature in time before the frosts. I also plan on a second crop of spinach that will be planted at end August. Hopefully that works out too.
Phil B.
I’m planning to plant some spinach too…and my second crop of beans also looks great! Succession planting really does extend the season. Good luck Phillip! 🙂
Spinach is coming up very quickly. Last night’s rain has really helped. It will be nice to get some fresh greens later in the season.
I agree! I planted some more lettuce, spinach and kale….can’t wait for the fall crops! 🙂