Do you succession plant? If not, you are missing out on keeping your garden as productive as you can. Succession planting is the simple act of always planting new items in the garden so that when your current plants start to slow on production, you have the next batch already planted. Said another way, it’s the practice of seeding crops at intervals of 7 to 21 days in order to maintain a consistent supply of harvestable produce throughout the season.

It also can mean planting a new crop after harvesting the first crop and it can be the same crop or a different crop. The point is to have an abundant supply of the crops that you enjoy growing and eating or sharing. Whether it’s peppers, tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, or broccoli, you can always stagger your growing so you don’t have too much all at once but have an ample supply of your favorite fresh produce throughout the growing season.

We understand it can be overwhelming to organize and keep track of this for beginning gardeners. That is why we created this amazing and easy-to-use succession planting spreadsheet. Download it today!

This worksheet was made with gardeners of zones 9 and 10 in mind, but it can be manipulated to help gardeners in ANY zone plant a thriving and productive garden that produces harvests throughout the different growing seasons. Simply change the first planting date to reflect the first frost-free days for your particular region. For example, if you are planting a garden in Kansas, you may want to change the first planting of beets to 5/1. You can find data on the first frost-free days of your region with the Farmers Almanac.

Find your frost-free dates by zip code.