Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Time and Yield
Most of the United States, even the northern plains, has a
growing season long enough to allow for multiple plantings
of many crops. Moreover, well-orchestrated timing allows
harvests to be timed either to allow a little at a time to be
harvested for daily use or marketing—which is useful for
crops like lettuce—or to allow multiple large harvests for the
purpose of preservation and storage. Many crops are frost
hardy, and second plantings will allow harvests to continue
for as long as a month after the first fall frost, without using
anything to extend the season. For example, two crops of
broccoli or spinach can be raised in the same area as one crop,
doubling production per unit area.
Succession Planting
This is a technique for maximizing productivity of garden
space by having a new crop ready to plant as soon as an
earlier crop is harvested. An example is planting a second
crop of broccoli in the same space where a first crop of
broccoli was harvested at midsummer. Another example is
sowing spinach early and then planting beans where the
spinach used to be as soon as the spinach is harvested.
Crops that work well for the early planting in a succession are
anything from the cabbage family, spinach, peas, radishes,
turnips, beets, and onions from sets. (“Sets” are the miniature
onions for planting that you can buy in a mesh bag at the
garden center. They aren't the same as supermarket onions.)
