I like to plant in 3'x8' blocks, try to never walk anywhere but the paths. I will fill that area with whatever I am growing, among the early plantings of spinach, lettuce, beets I plant cucumbers, mellons and squash. As one of the earlier crops are done, the other one is just starting to take over the bed.
For things like tomatoes I do plant in rows and never seem to get them staked very well and so they often sprawl all over. I get higher yields if they are kept tied up. Plant at least one cherry tomatoe, they ripen earlier than the big ones. And use tomatoe plants not seeds, unless you are starting them on your windowsill right now, same with peppers. You are in a similar growing area as me, because of our cool nights, go for things that take 85 days or less.
Good luck and if your family won't eat it, don't plant it.

In zone 5, there are limits to what can be succession planted, but it for sure possible. In early spring, you are planting (usually) peas, spinach and lettuce. These plants do not hold up well with the heat, and they mature quickly. By the time the real summer weather picks up (about the time you are planting your peppers and cucumbers) the spinach and lettuce can come out, and something else can go in. That something could be a long season veggie like peppers or cucumbers, or melons, or it could be a shorter variety like carrots, beets, or green onions or beans.

You want to select a variety that will mature in 55-70 days, somewhere in there. That gives you enough time to plant yet another crop for the fall garden, like broccoli, more lettuce and spinach, peas (although these don't do as well in the fall), or radishes. Something that will hold well until after a few good frosts and manage to mature in an Indian summer if you are fortunate enough to get one.

It can drive you crazy trying to schedule it all, but if you have only a small patch in the first place, it really is the only way to grow alot of veggies in a short time like a zone 5 summer. I personally don't have the time to manage an intricate succession plan for our 2500 ft2 garden, but I do try to get a spring and fall planting for most patches with a quick and simply buckwheat green manure crop in between.

Hope this helps!
Michael

While I believe that bare ground is unproductive ground, I haven't figured a way to "schedule" succession plantings. Consequently, I always keep extra Bush Bean seeds around for summer planting, and when it gets into August, there are the Daikon Radishes and more Spinach and Lettuce. When the spring Spinach is done, put in Basil seeds, they want the hot weather to germinate anyway, and then the plants are ready to process into Pesto in September.

Also, by the middle of the season, most of the big box stores and smaller retailers have plants that they weren't able to sell, and want to get rid of cheap. Plug in Broccoli and Cabbage plants, they will keep right on growing until a hard frost.

Put in a row of Carrots, they'll never get to full size, but you'll have sweet baby Carrots! Bok Choi is also good for a fall planting. Mustard Greens and Collards, Beet Greens and Mesclun mix, again not full size, but tender and crisp by Fall.

By mid summer here it's pretty hot and dry, so careful watering is necessary, and maybe a little frost protection as it gets later into the Fall. Good Luck!

Steve

I plant leaf lettuce seed indoors a number of times, then outdoors in the open garden later. Transplants and seed get dropped in along with onion sets, spinach and radish seed . . . well, not all in exactly the same place - but in what I think of as "salad beds." There are about 3 areas in the garden for these beds - even in my arid summer location, where salad veggies dry up during the hot weather, I have lots of weeks of fresh greens.

Cabbage transplants and other things go out early, of course. Later, the warm-season transplants go out. Between the early cabbage plants, I set out a 2nd planting of summer squash.

Zucchini and such can take a "major" hit from mildew during late summer and these later transplants (or seeds) can just be coming on about that time. The younger plants stay healthy even if the zucchini from the 1st planting are at death's door. I just try to get those early cabbages out of the way as soon as possible and have that 2nd planting of summer squash in before mid-June.

I prefer planting an early-maturing and a late-maturing corn at the same time. ThatÂs more of succession harvesting than succession planting, I suppose. Choice of tomato varieties fit with that same scheme.

Green beans are my fail-safe succession crop. I plant very few early because the garden will kind of fill up with beans later. Salad greens and such will go and the snap beans will take their place. I even plant beans after the peas.

My schedule is to make sure the bean seed goes in no later than mid-July.

Sowing pea seed during the hottest week of the year? Works for me. The last week of July, I'm out there putting snow pea seed in the ground. I've gotta say that most of these will be harvested as pea tendrils but I've picked frost-covered peapods around the first of October.

Late August is a good time to sow seed for "spring greens" again. None of these things do quite as well as they did when planted in April and May but they are even more appreciated at the table when I can harvest them in October.

. . . just 2¢ worth of ideas, Milehighgirl.

digitSteve

Well, my zone is very different than yours, but the principles are the same.

Each vegetable has a range in planting dates in your zone and most zones. Also, some varieties do better in the cooler part of the year, some in the hotter, like many of the common beans for example. Fortex, Garafal Oro in the cool months, Kentucky Wonders and Rattlesnakes when it is hot as hell. Once hell gets here, then switch to cow peas! (the long skinny asian ones are cow peas and thrive in heat).

So let's take peas as one example. In my zone I can plant any time between October and late January. So I plant a batch at the earliest possible time, then just in case we get Santa Anas and they get wiped out I plant again one month later, and another couple of batches until the end of january. This gives me a constant pea supply from December until May (January to May if we get bad Santa Anas).

Carrots are even better. You can plant cooler varieties and warm varieties. Last year I got carrots out of my garden EVERY single month, from Jan to Dec no kidding. Beets and chard are almost as good, very long planting range in most climates.

Kale and collards have also long seasons here, so I stagger them too. I also planted different cauliflower varieties with different DTM so I am just now starting to get cauliflower, and will keep getting them for a couple of months. Same with tomatoes, plant the stupice early, and plant the ones with long DTM a little later (your German greens or Kellogs Breakfast) so you will get a constant tomato harvest for a few months. If they are cherries even longer here!

As far as how to decide, if a spot becomes available in the garden we just determine what to plant by the season, and whether we have enough of something or not. We plant crops/varieties that span all seasons here, and we are harvesting something 365 days. Adjust to your climate, but you can still get a lot more crops that you would otherwise with this strategy.

I also inter-crop shamelessly (peas and tomatoes anyone?) so intensive it is. By the time the tomatoes start to feel a little crowded the peas are done. In the meantime, they were fixing nitrogen and protecting the baby tomatoes from too much sun or wind. Also, I have to wait a long time for the darn tomatoes, but was eating peas all along! Stuff like that. You have to find what works in your climate and you will.

In zone 6, this schedule works more or less. It is greens-heavy, but that is the way things are with quick crops. Fertilize and water according to normal cultivation procedures.

- have lettuce under hoophouses for first crop, cut as soon as fresh seeded lettuce comes into being, replace with rutabaga seedlings (90 days), Ditto for radish

- if you have two trellis, use one for peas, but in late May plant main season beans under the peas. Use the other trellis for early season beans

- further lettuce and spinach beds, plus fava greens (cut 2/3, leave 1/3 for seed), replace in succession with collard (65 days) and radicchio during June and July

- SVB/cucumber beetle victims (ha! they are practically a guarantee), replace with lacinato kale (50-55 days), also early potatoes can be replaced with lacinato seedlings (july August)

- August should see the onions and garlic depart. Replace with siberian kale (seed) and Joi Pak choi (35-45 days). You could also replant fava greens, though I am not usually hurting for greens in the Fall (as you can see from this post)

- ruthlessly cut the determinate tomatoes as soon as they are done. Plant small mustards such as arugula, tatsoi and broccoli raab (30-35 days) (August september)

Other things that you can use are beets (60-65 days), early cabbage (60 days from transplant), turnip (60 days). Surely there is a way to use carrots (about 60 days), but I have no experience with carrots as a second crop.

I always interplant lettuce with allium, and I have a succession arugula-arugula (also corn salad-corn salad) from its reseeding in the summer.

Where you do not have full sun resign yourself to a single crop or abbreviated schedule (forget collards and rutabagas, even in my shadiest bed I can replant pak choi with some success though). Use hoophouses to extend the season and start conservatively (maybe start from collards above, skip rutabagas).