Utilizing every inch

9 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

I have tried to find info on how to really use every inch of garden so nothing lays empty after harvesting spring crops.

I am probably using the wrong terms. Succession and rotation are all the search engines could match with my words.

So what I want to know is if I pull carrots lettuces and some onions say 6, 50' beds on June 5 to 15 what could I plant then? Okra, melons, beans? Sweet potatoes for sure. Need quick growing for the market season not just for me. I am not opposed to cover crop either I just don't want bare soil..

Featured Answer

Okiedawn OK Zone 7

9 years ago

From June 5-15 you can plant succession crops of southern peas (pink eye purple hulls, lady, zipper, cream or pea or any combination thereof), eggplant, peppers (mostly for a fall harvest), tomatoes (mostly for a fall harvest), muskmelons with shorter DTMs, icebox melons with shorter DTMs (like 60-75 instead of the larger melons' 90-120 days), sweet potatoes for a fall harvest, cucumbers if you can irrigate them enough to keep them growing well and producing well---it really isn't the heat that slows down their production nearly as much as it is the lack of consistent water, any pumpkins/winter squash that are C. moschata and, therefore, almost immune to SVBs. Oh, and the three varieties of Korean summer squash that are C. moschata. They love heat and thrive in it. When planting at this time of the year, it is important to choose varieties with shorter DTMs so they can produce quickly enough for you to have stuff to take to market.

If your soil needs a rest, sow alfalfa or some other short and quick cover crop, let it grow for a few weeks, the rototill it into the soil and sow seeds or transplant seedlings for the fall garden.

Here's the OK Fall Gardening Guide with its transplant dates;

Oklahoma Fall Gardening

Note that the earliest recommended fall planting date is for tomatoes. If I have bare soil, I put the fall tomatoes in the ground even earlier than recommended. Not a lot--but maybe 2 or 3 weeks earlier.

Remember that southern peas of all kinds double as a green manure crop that can be worked into the soil after the harvest is done, so there's a lot of benefit from growing lots of southern peas in the summer since the plant residue can improve the soil as it decomposes.

It is not necessarily easy to plant succession plants in June and July. You have to be careful to water adequately in the heat. Some summers it is almost impossible. You know which kind of summers I'm referring to. I try to stay flexible depending on what the weather is doing.

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Comments (15)

Turbo Cat (7a)
9 years ago
I'll be watching this thread closely. Although I don't have a garden the size of yours, I feel the same way this year: I don't want a bunch of bare soil gathering grass and weeds.
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AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
9 years ago
Here ya go Kim MEN Best Summer Cover Crops
luvncannin
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you all. I figured theres probably not too much I can grow for harvest except sweet potatoes and fall crops. I will check the short dtm melons since I have tons of melon seeds.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
9 years ago
You're welcome. I succession plant pretty much weekly, filling each bare spot as each crop finishes up. At one point in succession planting, I'm still succession planting for a summer harvest, but there is a point where I realize that the succession planting I'm doing is now plants that will be producing a fall harvest. It almost always is a subtle shock to me---like, wow, I can't believe we're already mid-way through the growing season.

I don't grow many summer cover crops other than an occasional quick crop of buckwheat or sometimes a large crop of edible southern peas that then can be used as a cover crop/green manure crop after they're done producing. Big cover crops that get tall will shade out other plants unless they're on the far north side of the garden with nothing edible further north of them, and the ones that make lots of biomass take too long and don't get out of the way before it is time to plant fall crops. If I was willing to put a portion of the garden into big cover crops in midsummer, there's many that do well, but I want every square foot of my garden producing for us during the main growing season. I admire people who will devote half their garden to doing nothing more than cover cropping for a whole summer/fall or even half of the garden for that, but that's not me and it isn't going to be me. My garden has to be producing flowers, fruit, herbs and veggies the whole growing season. It is hard for me to even give buckwheat a mere six weeks as a cover crop, but sometimes I do it anyway.

Dawn
chickencoupe
9 years ago
Dawn, yeh, but I know you're constantly thinking about those root zones, like from sunflowers, and what they're doing with the soil.

Now, if you would just let the lambsquartes breakout throughout the garden, occasionally, .....

jab, trigger, jab

hehe
bon
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
9 years ago
Ha. Ha. We have lambsquarters everywhere. Also pigweed. I ignore them outside the garden but yank them out if they are inside of it. If I let a single one of those survive in my garden and they make it to the flowering stage, then the next year I have a million of them. I hate them as much as I hate bindweed. Enough said!
oklahomegrown
9 years ago
@amyinowasso, that was a great article. thanks!
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
9 years ago
Oklahomegrown (great screen name) I like Mother Earth News. I tend to trust them more than some of the unknown websites.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
9 years ago
I like MEN too, but sometimes they still fail to have a good enough understanding of drought and heat as it relates to some places like TX and OK, and their idea of hot weather doesn't even approach what we generally have for months at a time in summer. However, I've read MEN since the 1970s and it remains one of my favorite magazines of all times.
luvncannin
Original Author
9 years ago
Found this helpful list

http://www.harvesttotable.com/2009/02/quick-maturing_vegetable_varie/
nowyousedum
9 years ago
Following
chickencoupe
9 years ago
It is totally necessary to read Amy's above post to fully understand Dawn's last post. rofl
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
9 years ago
Ha Ha Ha! We were referring to Mother Earth News for anyone who doesn't get the MEN reference.
luvncannin
Original Author
9 years ago
That's funny.