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The short answer: re-sow radishes every 10 to 14 days, leaf lettuce, spinach, arugula and cilantro every 14 days, bush beans, carrots, beets and turnips every 21 days, and sweet corn every 14 days. Sow squash and cucumbers twice a season and brassicas twice — spring and midsummer for a fall crop. Sow tomatoes, peppers, pole beans and kale once and keep picking. Full table below, with last sowing dates counted back from first frost.
The Problem It Solves
A garden planted in one weekend in May produces in one week in July. Twenty radishes mature together, go woody within days, and the row sits empty for the rest of the season. Fifteen lettuces bolt in the same heat wave. It is the most common structural mistake in home vegetable gardening, and it has nothing to do with skill — it is a scheduling problem.
Succession planting fixes it by breaking one large sowing into several small ones spaced across the season. Six radishes every twelve days rather than thirty at once. Two lettuces a week rather than fifteen in April. The total yield is similar; the useful yield is far higher, because you eat almost all of it. The habit also spreads risk — a bad germination week, a slug outbreak or a heat spike takes out one small sowing instead of the whole crop.
Sowing Intervals by Crop
The interval is roughly how long a mature planting holds in usable condition. Days to maturity are typical ranges and vary by variety, so check your packet.
| Crop | Re-sow every | Days to maturity | Last sowing (before first frost) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radish | 10–14 days | 25–30 | 4–5 weeks before |
| Arugula | 14 days | 30–40 | 4 weeks before |
| Leaf lettuce | 14 days | 45–55 | 5–6 weeks before |
| Spinach | 10–14 days (spring & fall) | 40–45 | 6 weeks before |
| Cilantro | 14–21 days | 45 to leaf | 6 weeks before |
| Dill | 21 days | 40–55 | 8 weeks before |
| Green onion | 21 days | 60–70 | 10 weeks before |
| Turnip | 21 days | 40–55 | 6–8 weeks before |
| Beet | 21 days | 50–60 | 8 weeks before |
| Carrot | 21 days | 65–80 | 10–11 weeks before |
| Bush beans | 14–21 days | 50–60 | 10–11 weeks before |
| Sweet corn | 14 days | 65–90 | 13–14 weeks before |
| Summer squash | Twice a season | 45–55 | 10 weeks before |
| Cucumber | Twice a season | 50–65 | 11 weeks before |
| Broccoli | Twice (spring, midsummer) | 60–85 from transplant | 12–13 weeks before |
| Kale, chard | Twice (spring, midsummer) | 55–65 | 8 weeks before (frost improves it) |
| Peas | Twice (early spring, late summer) | 55–70 | 10–11 weeks before |
| Basil | Every 4–6 weeks | 60 | 10 weeks before |
| Tomato, pepper, eggplant | Once — plant produces for months | 60–120 | — |
| Pole beans, winter squash, garlic, onions | Once | Varies | — |
The last column already includes an allowance for slower autumn growth. If you want a longer picking window rather than a single harvest, add another two weeks.
Four Ways to Succession Plant
Same crop, staggered dates. The standard method — a short row of lettuce every two weeks from March to June, then again from August. Use a calendar reminder; this fails through forgetting, not through difficulty.
Same crop, different maturity dates. Sow an early, a mid and a late variety on the same day. Three sweet corn varieties at 68, 78 and 88 days give three harvests from one sowing session, which is far easier to manage than three trips to the bed. Works well for corn, potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes.
Different crops, same space — relay planting. The efficient version. Peas finish in early July and the bed goes straight to bush beans. Spring spinach comes out and fall carrots go in. Garlic lifted in July leaves six weeks of open bed before fall greens. Add an inch of compost between crops and keep plant families rotating.
Interplanting. Two crops in the same space with different timelines. Radishes between carrot rows are up in four days, mark the slow carrot row, break the soil crust and are harvested before the carrots need the space. Lettuce between young brassicas is gone before the cabbages fill out. This is the technique that makes a small bed produce far more than its square footage suggests, and it overlaps with the spatial pairings in our companion planting chart.
A Season in Practice (Zone 6)
Last frost around April 21, first frost around October 20. Adjust the dates to your own zone using when to start seeds by zone.
| Window | Sow | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Late March | Peas, spinach, radish #1, lettuce #1 | Soil workable, 40°F and up |
| Mid April | Radish #2, lettuce #2, carrots #1, beets #1 | Brassica transplants go out |
| Early May | Radish #3, lettuce #3, bush beans #1, corn #1 | Soil at 60°F for beans |
| Late May | Beans #2, corn #2, carrots #2, cucumber #1, squash #1 | Tomatoes and peppers planted out |
| Mid June | Beans #3, corn #3, basil #2, cilantro | Lettuce pauses — it bolts above 80°F |
| Early July | Beans #4, carrots #3, squash #2, fall brassica seed | Squash #2 dodges peak vine borer pressure |
| Late July | Beets, turnips, fall carrots, cucumber #2 | Shade the rows until germination |
| Early August | Last bush beans, brassica transplants out, kale | Last realistic bean sowing |
| Late August | Spinach, lettuce, arugula, radish | Fall greens season begins |
| Mid September | Last lettuce and spinach, garlic ordered | Under cover these run into November |
| October | Garlic cloves, cover crop on empty beds | Garlic overwinters for a July harvest |
The Midsummer Gap Nobody Warns You About
Every succession plan meets the same wall in July. Lettuce bolts above about 80°F and germinates poorly above 80°F in the soil. Spinach bolts even faster. Cilantro flowers within weeks. Direct-sown seed in a hot bed dries out between waterings, and the seedlings that do appear are stressed from the start.
Four things get you through it. Sow heat-tolerant varieties — summer crisp and oakleaf lettuces, slow-bolt cilantro, and New Zealand spinach or Malabar spinach in place of true spinach. Sow into the afternoon shade of a tomato or corn row. Start summer greens in cells indoors or in a shaded spot and transplant them, since a seedling under your control is easier to keep damp than a seed row in a hot bed — the method is in how to start seeds indoors. And water the seed row daily and lightly until germination, which is the specific case where the deep-soak rule in how often to water a vegetable bed does not apply.
The Second Season Most Gardens Skip
The best vegetable growing weather of the year in much of the United States is September and October, and most beds are winding down by then out of habit. Fall crops go into warm soil and mature into cooling weather, which suits brassicas, roots and greens exactly — carrots and Brussels sprouts are sweeter after frost, because the plant converts starch to sugar as an antifreeze.
The obstacle is that fall planting happens in July and August, when the garden is at its most demanding and the last thing on your mind is sowing more. Put the dates in a calendar in spring. Fall brassica seed in early July, transplants out in early August, fall roots sown mid-July to mid-August, greens through late August and September. Add a row cover or a low tunnel and most of zones 5 through 8 can harvest greens into December.
Making It Stick
Three habits separate the gardeners who do this from the ones who intend to. Put the sowing dates in a phone calendar with a repeat set to the interval — the plan fails through forgetting, not through complexity. Sow small: six radishes, eight lettuces, a three-foot row of beans, so no single sowing overwhelms your kitchen. And keep a notebook of what you sowed and when, because next year's schedule writes itself from this year's notes, adjusted for what you actually ate.
Direct-sown crops carry most of a succession plan, which makes the sowing-method decision worth getting right — the crop-by-crop version is in direct sow vs transplant. And if you are raising the transplanted end of the plan indoors, a tray setup that can run several small sowings at once is more useful than one big one; the field is ranked in best seed starting kits.
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More from this hub: Seeds & Vegetable Growing · When to start seeds by zone · Companion planting chart · How often to water a vegetable bed · How we rank