Succession Sowing Made Simple: How to Grow Fresh Veg All Season
There’s nothing worse than being too eager and sowing all your seeds only to find in harvesting season that you have a huge glut of veg and nothing to do with it all. Succession sowing is an excellent way of combating this, ensuring that your vegetable cropping season is extended. If you’ve not practiced this before, it might sound a little daunting, but you’d be surprised by how easy this method is to try. We’ve put together some top tips to help make your succession sowing a success.
What is succession sowing?
Succession sowing just means sowing your seeds little and often so that you have a longer, more continuous harvest of produce and avoid gluts and droughts.
The most common period to leave it between sowings is around 2 weeks, and this can decrease to 1 week in warmer conditions or with quick growing vegetables. However, it can be more beneficial to wait for your seedlings to be properly developed before you get the next wave going. This way, you should have strong plants that will need harvesting at appropriate intervals.
However long you choose to leave it between sowings, make sure that you keep track of what you’ve planted and when so that you know how to plan your sowing and harvesting moving forward.
Succession sowing is also a great use of space, especially when you’re working in smaller areas, and you’ll have less waste and get more value from your seeds. What’s not to love?
What vegetables are good for succession sowing?
Succession sowing is particularly good for quick-maturing vegetables that perish quickly as well as any plants that are prone to bolting. You can also choose to sow crops that take longer to fruit like cucumber, beetroot, runner beans, and sweetcorn in two well-timed batches to give you another harvest into the autumn. We’ve picked out a few successional sowing favourites below to help you choose.
Radish
Radish is a fast-growing salad staple with peppery flesh and often brightly-coloured skin that takes very little space and is perfectly suited for succession sowing. Try old favourites like Cherry Belle or French Breakfast for a classic flavour and look, or try something different like our Moon Mix or Black Spanish Round to give your salads a pop of colour throughout the season.
Carrot
Although Carrots take a little longer to mature than some of the other vegetables on this list, they are perfect for succession sowing as it means you can have a fresh supply from summer through until late autumn with the right varieties. Succession sowing also means that you can harvest your carrots whilst they are younger and sweeter.
Try Amsterdam Forcing or Early Nantes for quick-growing sweet carrots, and sow some longer-maturing, better-storing varieties like Autumn King to extend your season further. You could also try some brightly-coloured varieties like Rainbow Mix or Purple Dragon for something different.
Spinach
Packed with vitamins and full of iron, Spinach is an excellent addition to any salad and can bring a healthy boost to many meals. Many spinach varieties are also prone to bolting, which makes succession sowing a fantastic way of ensuring you have a healthy spinach crop for longer. Try Medania for bolt-resistance, Perpetual for tender leaves and a long harvest period, or Giant Winter for flavoursome leaves and cold-hardiness.
FRENCH BEANS
French beans are very popular for succession sowing as they are fast-maturing and highly productive. They will stop producing heavily after 4-6 weeks, so staggering your French Bean planting every 2-3 weeks helps you to have a continuous harvest throughout the summer. Cobra and Blue Lake a very popular climbing French Bean varieties, whilst Slenderette and Safari offer smaller, more compact plants. We love to grow Blauhilde for its deep purple pods and Bergold for a pop of bright yellow.
LETTUCE / SALAD LEAVES
Fresh salad leaves are one of the top perks of growing your own vegetables, and by sowing them successively, you can ensure that you’re able to do this for longer.
With so many different varieties to choose from and short maturing rates, Lettuce and other salad leaves are one of the top crop types to use succession sowing for.
Try Mesclun Mix for a great combination of lettuce, mustard, and kale leaves that is often used by restaurants, Little Gem for fast growing classic lettuce, or our Mustard Tasty Mix for a flavourful combination of mustard leaves that add a spicy kick to any salad or dish.
ROCKET
Rocket leaves are absolutely delicious in a salad, adding depth of flavour with a peppery kick. Rocket plants are prone to bolting, however, which can make them a liability when traditionally sown. Try succession sowing Wild and Cultivated rocket to have a constant harvest for fresh salads throughout the summer.
How do I start Succession Sowing if I’ve never done it before?
It can feel a little overwhelming looking at just how many different vegetables benefit from succession sowing, and planning out your growing season and incorporating them all into multiple waves of produce can feel like an impossible task. However, we encourage you to start small and get yourself used to the process before committing to a full successional rota.
Setting simple calendar reminders on your phone can be a great way of making sure you don’t miss the next sowing, and start with one or two varieties so that it’s not too taxing for you in your first year. We also love to put sowing dates on our labels to make the process even easier.
Remember – don’t sow everything all at the same time, crops will grow slower later in the season and will therefore require more time, and the QR code on your Premier Seeds Direct packets will take you to our online product pages with detailed cultivation advice from our experts to give you everything you need to try succession sowing this year.
