Ditto to the above. There are several strategies that can be employed. Intercropping is one, where you have, for instance a leaf crop, a fruiting crop, and a root crop all growing together - for our purposes, lets say arugula, snap peas, and turnips for the early season. Of these, the arugula will be ready for harvest first, then the turnips, then the peas. You could time your planting so that everything is ready at the same time, making the entire bed ready for a new crop. Or, you could plant everything at the same time, meaning you would have a succession of harvests, perhaps overlapping slightly, of 3 different crops. Or, you could stagger your planting dates, so that you get a longer harvest, but less yield on a weekly basis. Each strategy has advantages, depending on your long term plans. For me, staggered plantings of the arugula and turnips make sense, because i want to eat them in a few meals every week, but because the peas will provide a continuous harvest over a longer period - because we're harvesting the fruit, and not the whole plant - I would put in that row all at the same time, and in another bed put in a second row a few weeks later, or establish a succession by planting a variety with a different maturation period. The arugula MAY provide multiple harvests, depending on your method, and will be available first. It is also least tolerant of heat, so will benefit from being shaded by the peas as the season progresses. Because it will see the most attention, I would plant it at the outside of my bed, where it is easiest to reach. The turnips, being root crops, will cause some disturbance when they are harvested, so I will make sure that they are not too closely spaced, to the other turnips, but also to the other crops in the bed. The peas will be comparatively tall when they are ready to harvest, so the shade that they produce will need to be accounted for in the layout of the bed - not only in terms of North-South-East-West, but if the row is in the middle, with other crops on either side, or on one edge, where the effect of shading is reduced. Assuming 70 days for the peas to mature, and perhaps 2 weeks of harvest, it's possible that you could have the entire bed emptied and ready to plant on 3 months, but that would mean a significant amount of space was being underutilized where the arugula and turnips were removed. You could choose to reseed those areas with your second crop, but it would be more time-efficient to transplant. In the interest of rotation, and taking into account the season, you might put in cucumbers, to climb the trellis soon to be vacated by the peas, or eggplant, or squash. Broccoli would work, but it's a heavy feeder, and it's related to turnips, so less ideal. Greens could work, but you're getting into the warmest part of the season, so kale would be a better choice than spinach. And ideally you want whatever you plant to be ripe and ready in time to get a third crop into the ground - and ripe - before winter sets in, so maturity dates become even more important as you do your planning later in the season. Otherwise, you'll get to the end of the growing season, and unless you have some kind of season-extension tactics, the only thing able to grow to maturity in your garden will be 25-day radishes, and really, how many of those do you want to eat? Another consideration is how you will deal with the harvest. If you are growing only to have fresh vegetables for the length of the growing season, successions are the way to go. But if you want to freeze pesto or can tomato sauce or make pickles, you want a large harvest all at once so that you can efficiently process your produce. Personally, I don't want to be stuck in a hot kitchen on August, so I schedule some of my plantings so that the canning can take place, as much as possible, in the cooler months, and the foods that can be enjoyed raw are coming ripe in summer. That means not only making choices about crops, but about varieties - slicing tomatoes to ripen early, but plum tomatoes in September, or Hakuri turnips to eat in summer, and purple-tops, which taste better cooked, for fall. As you can see, the process of multiple cropping is wonderfully complex. This is just one example, with only a few crops, and doesn't fully incorporate the varying needs of water, nutrients, and sunlight that a detailed plan should include. Short maturity crops like radishes and salad greens can often simply be tucked in wherever space and time allow without much planning, and having seedlings always on hand to transplant will provide you with a denser harvest schedule, but a successful plan for multiple harvests is a multi-dimensional puzzle, involving space, time, species, cultural requirements, season, and use. Personally, I enjoy the complexity, it's like a game of chess, or planning a perfect heist, but for some people it can seem daunting. It is probably best, in the beginning, to follow one simple rule - plant something every week, and when you harvest one crop, renew the soil (I add lots of compost, and nothing more) and plant again. Lastly (for now), although you are growing in the same space, it is never the same soil. It is important to renew the soil regularly, to replace all of the nutrients that multiple cropping removes. Lots of compost, and fertilizer when needed, will go a long way towards providing a good succession.

Planting "Impatiens" anywhere in Northern California now is not a good idea. Even in the mild winter areas of Southern California, Impatiens will not give you their best performance this time of year. The best bets for planting in any part of Caliofornia now would be: Tall (over 3 feet) -- Alcea rosea HOLLYHOCK Campanula pyramidalis CHIMNEY BELLFLOWER Digitalis purpurea FOXGLOVE Verbascum bombyciferum SILVER MULLEIN Medium (1-3 feet) -- Antirrhinum majus SNAPDRAGON Digitalis purpurea Foxy FOXGLOVE Matthiola incana STOCK Salvia argentea SILVER SAGE Scabiosa atropurpurea PINCUSHION FLOWER Short (under 1 foot) -- Antirrhinum majus SNAPDRAGON Bellis perennis ENGLISH DAISY Brassica oleracea var. Acephala FLOWERING CABBAGE, KALE Calendula officinalis POT MARIGOLD Campanula medium CANTERBURY BELLS, CUP-AND-SAUCER Chrysanthemum multicaule YELLOW CLUMP DAISY Chrysanthemum paludosum WHITE CLUMP DAISY Clarkia amoena GODETIA Cynoglossum amabile CHINESE FORGET-ME-NOT Dianthus barbatus SWEET WILLIAM Dianthus chinensis, hybrids PINKS Matthiola incana STOCK Myosotis sylvatica (alpestris) FORGET-ME-NOT Primula malacoides FAIRY PRIMROSE Primula obconica GERMAN PRIMROSE Viola cornuta VIOLA Viola tricolor JOHNNY-JUMP-UP Viola x wittrockiana PANSY Direct Sown -- Agrostemma gracilis (A. githago) CORNCOCKLE Amberboa (Centaurea) moschata SWEET SULTAN Calendula officinalis POT MARIGOLD Centaurea cyanus CORNFLOWER, BACHELORS BUTTONS Chrysanthemum carinatum TRICOLOR DAISY Chrysanthemum segetum CORN MARIGOLD Clarkia unguiculata (C. elegans) CLARKIA Consolida regalis/ajacis LARKSPUR Eschscholzia californica CALIFORNIA POPPY Gaillardia pulchella BLANKET FLOWER Gypsophila elegans ANNUAL BABYÂS-BREATH Iberis umbellata CANDYTUFT Lunaria annua HONESTY Malcomia maritima VIRGINIA STOCK Malope trifida MALOPE Matthiola longipetala bicornis EVENING-SCENTED STOCK Nigella damascena LOVE-IN-A-MIST Papaver commutatum FLANDERS POPPY Papaver rhoeas CORN POPPY, SHIRLEY POPPY Papaver somniferum PEONY POPPY Reseda odorata MIGNONETTE Silene coeli-rosa ROSE-OF-HEAVEN Tropaeolum majus NASTURTIUM NATIVE WILDFLOWERS Camissonia bistorta CALIFORNIA SUN CUP Clarkia amoena GODETIA Clarkia bottae BOTTAEÂS CLARKIA Clarkia unguiculata ELEGANT CLARKIA, FAREWELL-TO-SPRING Collinsia heterophylla CHINESE HOUSES Eschscholzia caespitosa DWARF CALIFORNIA POPPY Eschscholzia californica CALIFORNIA POPPY Gilia capitata QUEEN ANNEÂS THIMBLES Gilia tricolor BIRDÂS EYE GILIA Lasthenia glabrata GOLDFIELDS Layia platyglossa TIDYTIPS Limnanthes douglasii MEADOWFOAM Linanthus androsaceus FALSE BABY STARS Linanthus grandiflorus MOUNTAIN PHLOX Lupinus bicolor FAIRY LUPINE Lupinus densiflorus GOLDEN LUPINE Lupinus succulentus ARROYO LUPINE Lupinus nanus SKY LUPINE Madia elegans ELEGANT TARWEED Mentzelia lindleyi BLAZING STARS Nemophila maculata FIVESPOT Nemophila menziesii BABY BLUE-EYES Phacelia campanularia CALIFORNIA BLUEBELL Phacelia tanacetifolia TANSY-LEAF PHACELIA Platystemon californicum CREAM CUPS Salvia columbariae CHIA Stylomecon heterophylla WIND POPPY "Hardy" perennials to grow as winter/spring annuals Alcea ficifolia ANTWERP HOLLYHOCK Aquilegia COLUMBINE Aurinia saxatilis BASKET OF GOLD Campanula lactiflora, C. persicifolia BELLFLOWER Catanache caerulea CUPIDÂS DART Coreopsis x grandiflora TICKSEED Delphinium DELPHINIUM Delphinium grandiflorum DWARF CHINESE DELPHINIUM Dianthus deltoides, D. gratianopolitanus, D. plumarius PINKS Digitalis lanata GRECIAN FOXGLOVE Echinacea purpurea PURPLE CONEFLOWER Erysimum x allionii SIBERIAN WALLFLOWER Erysimum cheiri WALLFLOWER Papaver croceum (nudicaule) ICELAND POPPY Penstemon x gloxinioides BEARDTONGUE Primula x polyantha ENGLISH PRIMROSE Primula sinensis CHINESE PRIMROSE Rudbeckia hirta BLACK-EYED SUSAN Joe

I think a lot depends on the plant. And how well the plant handles having its roots disturbed. I had a shasta daisy alaska that I divided this spring. It was probably 12-14" diameter. I must have divided that into close to 25 divisions. And at least half of those divisions bloomed this year - granted each division only had 1 or 2 blossoms. But considering I bought this as a little 3" plant 3 years ago - I would say I got my moneys worth! Siberica and Day Lillies are other plants that seem not to mind being divided into tiny divisions. Last year I was dividing tons of siberica. After dividing, I ended up with tons of spare root clumps. I buried the root clumps, and lo and behold got plants this year! Whenever I divide day lillies, if I have any additional little bulb things, I just plant them somewhere. It may take 2 or 3 years to get blossoms from these little bulbets - but I'll take delayed blossoms over the compost heap.

Chris W says; How deep should you plant a hosta? What are the consequences of too shallow? Too deep? What is the "right" depth for a hosta? Plants that are too shallow get heat stress faster, drought stress faster, and can get cold damage over the winter if that crown gets exposed. Deeper plants tend to stay dormant longer which can be important with frost sensitive plants like the fragrant ones. If you have hostas coming back smaller with smaller leaves, check if you can see the crown. If so it is too shallow. Plants that are too deep will need to grow up closer to the surface. Eyes may emerge further out from where the main clump was located so that you no longer have a tight clump. Stems may rot a little easier if they get buried in summer by mulch. I always try to get the "right" depth, but I would much rather err on the side of planting a little too deep. Plants will establish the "correct" depth the very next season if they were too deep. For example if you plant a crown at 3" and it wanted to be 2" you will probably never even notice that it had to grow up that extra inch below the surface before producing a new eye. However, plants can take several seasons to grow deeper if they come back at all when planted too shallow. In our rows we will often find that the largest hostas are the ones that were planted a little deeper than the rest. TOO deeply and we will see that the eyes are spaced a little further apart but are still usually the largest plantlets. When we have a plant that is struggling we find that the crown is often right at or slightly below the surface. We also find that moles often tunnel underneath plants causing them to rise up closer to the surface, plus creating an air pocket under the plant. Those plants dry out in the summer and struggle over the winter. The only time that depth may pose a problem is if they were buried or sank during the season. If a hosta was growing at a depth of 1" from the top of the eyes/dormant buds to the surface and was then planted at a depth of 3" you might get some stem rot. By early to mid summer most stems are hardened off to the soil and can tolerate a little covering but you might get rot problems during the heat of the summer. Because of this we prefer to topdress shallow hostas in the fall after they are starting to go dormant. In most cases it is just better to get the depth close when planting and the hosta will find its way the next spring if you were off a little. Two examples of plants finding the right depth after being planted too deep: 1) A Hosta 'Riptide', one eye, was planted last summer with the crown at a depth of 3 1/2". This particular eye emerged last, but by mid summer the eye was slightly larger than other plants around it. I dug it up and it had grown an elongated stem out of the main eye and then established a new crown at a depth of 2", measured from the top of the dormant buds to the soil level. Roots were at about 2 1/4". Our remaining plants were only at a depth of about 1" but should have been planted up to 2" deep without causing any harm. 2) A Hosta 'Pineapple Juice' was noticed in the growing area with 6 eyes spaced very far apart. It was planted last fall. Upon digging it I noticed that it had been planted too deeply, and possibly at an angle. The deepest eye from last fall was at a depth of 4 1/2". The shallowest was at a depth of 1 1/2". All of the eyes produced elongated stems and every single one produced a new eye at a depth of 1 1/4" with roots around 1 1/2". So in this case the proper depth would have been about 1 1/4". Butch adds; Nothing I'm about to say disagrees with Chris but there is a method to make it easier. Choose the depth you feel is proper then mulch when you've finished planting, the plant can find its own depth with out much suffering. Mulch will not overcome way to deep but help and mulch will absolutely overcome to shallow. Mulch is creating new soil, building it up slowly and the plant will find its own proper level. Two things mulch offers is insulation, summer and winter and air. Air is a little discussed subject and just as important as water, sun and food. Ive found that hosta roots do not need as much air as most believe but the crown area does need sufficient air. The air around the crown is consistent with hosta growing in the wild in Japan.