Carol, I always have transplants standing by to a certain extent even if I just started them in small paper cups a week or two before I intend to transplant them. How old the transplants are will vary. I usually keep a few tomato and pepper transplants in 1 gallon pots on the patio where they get morning sun/afternoon shade well into June or early July so I can plop them into the ground to replace a plant that dies. If nothing dies, I'll eventually toss the unused 'backup' plants onto the compost pile. In a rainier year, they may send roots down into the compost pile and grow there, but since the compost pile is not fenced off from the wild animals, a deer or rabbit or something usually will eat them within a few weeks. For follow-on or succession crops, how I prepare succession plantings will vary, depending on which kind of vegetable we're talking about. For example, I often plant southern peas to replace broccoli and cabbage when they're done. So, when I see the little broccoli heads just starting to size up, I'll sow southern pea seeds in tiny bathroom-sized paper cups with the bottoms cut out of them. Then, when it is broccoli harvest time, I harvest the heads, pull up the plants (normally I don't leave them for sideshooting because I'm eager to get the new crop into the ground) in the morning and then in the cool evening hours, I'll transplant the southern peas, cups and all, into the garden and water them well. Then they have a little time overnight to adjust to being transplanted, but since I have transplanted them in their bottomless paper cups, there's rarely any transplant shock at all. It is not essential, obviously to start the seeds in cups as opposed to direct sowing, but I do it for two reasons. First, to get the succession crop to produce earlier a bit earlier. (Remember that everything I do is aimed at maximizing the harvest we get from our garden.) The plants from cups are a week old most of the time when I set them out. Secondly, to ensure no wasted space. If I sow seeds, I may have an empty spot here and there where seed didn't sprout. When I transplant young seedlings, there are no empty spots. It can drive my friends and neighbors crazy when they stop by one day and see a raised bed full of young pea plants that only yesterday had huge broccoli plants. I, however, love those fast transitions. For a long time, I assumed I was a garden wierdo (and maybe I am) because I preferred to start every followon crop in cups and transplant immediately after yanking out the previous crop. However, I then learned that some serious biointensive gardeners use a similar method--starting every single thing they grow from transplants and direct seeding virtually nothing for the same reasons I do...maximizing harvest and productivity, and then I didn't feel like such a weirdo any more. That's one way I succession plant, but there's another method that works really well too and that is to plant sprawling, rambling warm-season plants close to early season plants. You might be putting those sprawling plants into the ground in April or May when the cool-season crop was planted in February or March. Then, after the early cool-season plants are harvested, the warm-season plant that was planted much later will quickly spread and take over the recently-made-available space. For example, I might plant Seminole pumpkin near the potato bed. It will be starting to ramble and roam and move close to the potato bed, and then after I dig the potatoes, it will take over that area. Or, I might plant Sugar Baby watermelon in May somewhat close to the carrots that were planted in March. Once the carrots are harvested in June, Sugar Baby rapidly takes over the space they formerly occupied. Most years, this works out really well. It may seem peculiar to some folks to start carrot seeds inside and transplant them outside, but it guarantees me a carrot crop instead of having to spend 2, 3 or 4 weeks to wait and see how well the carrots do (or do not) sprout in any given year. Some years, usually either in a drought year when soil is exceptionally dry or in an exceptionally wet, rainy year, I start carrots inside and other years when the weather is right in the middle--not too dry and not too wet--I direct sow them outside. If I am direct sowing carrots, I prefer to use homemade seed tapes made during the cold winter months, so sowing the carrot seeds outdoors takes only a few minutes and their spacing is pretty good other than maybe an occasional gap in a row where a seed didn't germinate. A Three Sisters garden is another form of succession planting where you can harvest 3 crops at 3 different times from one bed. I plant the corn first and let it get at least knee-high before I plant beans that will climb the beanstalks later. These beans need to be direct-seeded because I don't want to disturb the roots of the previously planted corn plants by using a trowel to dig a hole large enough to transplant beans started in cups. If it is an early corn with short stalks like Early Sunglow, I plant half-runners that won't overwhelm the stalks when they start climbing. A much taller corn can handle a bean that is more of a rampant grower. I will plant pumpkins and winter squash a couple of weeks later (it depends on soil temps) around the perimeter of the corn and bean planting. They'll ramble and roam and eventually spread all over that area. The corn is normally harvested first. Then, later on, it will be the green beans that are harvested and, when harvesting them, I have to be careful that I don't step on the pumpkins vines and crush them. Eventually, the beans are pretty much done and the pumpkins or winter squash are getting quite large and I'll harvest them last. That's a way to get at least three crops from the space generally devoted to one crop. I think I have grown virtually every single crop you can grow from seed in paper cups, except for carrots, turnips, radishes and beets. I have started carrots inside in the cardboard tubes from paper towels, wrapping paper, and toilet paper. I save all those cardboard tubes, cut the larger ones down to the same size as the ones from toilet paper, line them up in a seed flat, fill them with a soil-less seed starting mix, plant the carrot seets, and transplant them out into the garden within a week of the carrots sprouting. Carrot seeds will sprout much more quickly for me indoors in warmer temps under lights than they do outdoors, and if we have one hard rain while I'm waiting for the carrot seeds to sprout outside in my sloping garden, there won't be any carrots because a hard rain will wash the seeds out of the garden and down into the bar ditch or the woods. In order for carrots sprouted indoors to do well, though, you must transplant them outside almost the minute they sprout. They get really long really fast so you can't keep them inside more than a very few days after they sprout or they'll grow out of the bottom of the cardboard tubes. Another way I speed up the succession planting process is to pre-sprout seeds indoors in wet paper towels or coffee filters, and then transfer those pre-sprouted seeds directly into the ground where they are to grow. So, I'm still direct seeding them, but with the pre-sprouted seeds, the plants will pop up out of the ground in a day or two instead of in a week or two, and there won't be any gaps in a row where seeds didn't sprout, because I discard seeds that didn't sprout and only plant the sprouted ones. I even use presprouting for seeds I'm starting in flats on the light shelf sometimes, although that's more common in a year with few fires. In a year with lots of fires, I'm gone too mcuh to pre-sprout and just throw the seeds in the flat, put them on the light shelf, and try to remember to check them every morning and evening to see if they need watered. I use all kinds of tricks like that to make my garden as productive as possible. When people say they cannot understand how I can fill up a root cellar, 2 or 3 freezers and hundreds of canning jars from a garden "only" the size of mine, I think to myself that if they lived here with me for one gardening year and saw all the extra effort I put into keeping every square inch planted and producing something, then they'd understand how it is possible to get such large yields. I hate, hate, hate "wasted space" in the garden and do everything I can to avoid having any land sit idle for any period of time during the gardening season. Dawn

Tracy, I've wondered for years if we could grow quinoa the way we grow winter rye and oats. Maybe I'll try that in 2013. I do grow Armenian cucumber every now and then, though not always every year. In 2012, I grew huge numbers of these cukes so that I could give them to the chickens on hot days. Our chickens love them, and when I began walking to their coop area with a big Armenian cucumber in my hands, no matter how far they were away from the coop free-ranging, they came running like little maniacs so they could devour the cukes. I always let the ones for the chickens grow huge before I harvest them. For kitchen use, I harvest them while they are much smaller. Now that the chickens are used to having them, I'll likely have to grow some for them every summer. I grew Armenian cukes this year in two locations. The main crop was on the fence on the western end of the garden, where they had full sun until about noon and then heavily dappled shade thereafter. I grew a smaller crop on a portion of the southern garden fence, with the driveway just outside that fence. They produced more heavily, but also were more heat-stressed since they were in full sun from sunrise to sunset and were attacked more by spider mites late in the season and by blister beetles in late July or early August. I did plant a huge number of Armenian cucumber plants for a small family, but that's because I intended to use the extras for the chickens. It worked out really well. Once the blister beetles had decimated the Armenian cukes, we had an extreme number of cantaloupes (muskmelons) and watermelons as well, so I gave the chickens a watermelon or a muskmelon just about every day. It was a great way to ensure they were getting enough moisture on those extremely hot July and August days. I made pickles from some of the smaller Armenian cukes, but since I made tons of pickles from regular cukes as well, I have not yet opened one of the jars made from Armenian cukes. I love Native Seeds/SEARCH and at the rate things are going in terms of summer heat and drought, I want to start growing more of the varieties they carry that are from hot, dry areas that have hot nights. Some of their beans have grown really well for me in precious drought years earlier in the 2000s. Those of you who are new to Native Seeds/SEARCH, be sure you read the descriptions and choose varieties that would match your climate. Some of Native Seed's varieties were collected from high altitude areas that have cool nights even when their days are very hot. Those varieties might not perform as well here as the ones from areas that have hot days and hot nights. For anyone looking for seeds of Devil's Claw, they carry several different ones. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Native Seeds/SEARCH

Well, I *did* take the baker creek catalouge on my 2nd honeymoon, and spent several hours glazing over my husband's eyes by the fire debaiting which melons/berries/etc... to try. Hippee freak? yep, I must be. That's my kind of honeymoon. Your hubby is very lucky man. I will state I have no connection to Baker Creek. In fact this was the first time I ever saw their catalog. I will say this week I was very disappointed in Territorial Catalog. I wanted to get just one item. Cost about $3.25 for the seeds and $7.00 for shipping. that is over $10. for one pack of seeds. Obviously they only want the big buyers. Now I have already spent well over $100 on seeds and more to come. But if they wanted my bigger order they needed to get their catalog to me faster. As far as I am concerned Territorial has priced itself out of the market for me. I like the Baker Creek Catalog but my favorite to buy seeds is FEDCO. I get seeds for about $1 a pack and no shipping charges. Territorial wants $3 a pack and $7 shipping. I do not have any relationship to any and all seed companies. I speak as an independent buyer. Look if I can get 40 packs of seeds from Fedco at $1 each or $40 total or buy them for $3 each $120 plus even more shipping on a bigger order. Hands down my pockets. Keep the money. I am going to spend $30 before I spend $120. My second big order went to Sandhill Preservation. I support their good work in preserving genetics. They also have some things I wanted that I see no where else. I hope people will support Sandhill in their important work. Now Baker Creek does some heirlooms and had great color. So I was impressed. So I like Fedco and Sandhill. But they do not have the best catalogs. But they keep cost down and sell for a good price. Fine with me. So far I have ordered from 5 seed companies this winter for well over $100 and I want more seeds. so I plan on more orders. wish someone had it all. My choices for Best Company to purchase seeds 1. Fedco best prices and good selection. The best value for the money. 2. Sandhill Preservation. Doing important work to preserve genetics. A good family company at low prices. Both have low cost catalogs. Johnny's everyone likes Johnny's. Great company research on what grows well in the North. Osborn is a good practical company that is geared toward the farmer. If you want Broccolini you might not find it anywhere else but here.

I had a great experience with them too. All seeds I got sprouted and they packed extra in those that have poor germination.