Everything I know about: staggered planting

I got a question about planting to ensure continuous supplies of veggies, here is the lowdown on that topic.

First, to really be able to live off of your garden requires either lots of land (like the pioneers), lots of skill and sunshine (like PTF) or both. But for the rest of us I think a well planned garden might be able to produce good weekly yields from as little as about 100 square feet (what I'm working with).

There are two kinds of things that produce edibles and for the sake of clarity I'm going to use tomato terminology. Fruit and vegetable plants are either determinate or non-determinate.

Determinate plants give you all they've got at once, or you take all the plant has at once as in the case of head lettuce, cabbage etc. If you are going to be canning or doing any kind of preserving, these are your friend because most canning recipes call for using large quantities of fresh produce. Determinate varieties ensure that if you plant a large amount at one time you will harvest a very large amount at one time.

Non-determinate plants will stagger production, or allow you to harvest a few leaves, fruit or one plant at a time without worrying too much about the rest of the crop going bad, as I do with potatoes, onions, or leaf lettuce.

Then there is another type which doesn't quite fit what I would consider either, and the only one I can think of like that is broccoli, cut the main head and it will regrow more "side shoots" but they will not be as large as the initial offering.

The first thing that should be very evident is the planning required, a level of planning that keeps me awake at night. If you wanted to be absolutely scientific about it I'm sure there would be ways to ensure that even with small plots, you are taking in produce daily, but I have yet to achieve that. The other thing to consider is the days to maturity variable. I might be a cynic but I don't put much stock in those numbers except as a rough guideline to tell me roughly when they will be ready. Unless you have perfect soil, perfect sun exposure, and perfect weather I wouldn't bet the microfarm on those numbers.

What the numbers can help with is to provide a way to minimize wasted space in the garden, and by that I mean if you are trying to get a somewhat continuous harvest of green beans you could plant an early bush variety like "provider" at the same time as a slightly longer maturing bush variety. The alternative is to plant a second "provider" crop a week or two later. The disadvantage there is if you are planting closely, the later crop might not get the same sun access from the other group getting a head start, and second (perhaps the most irritating to me) there is a bare spot in the garden in the interim. Bare soil gets easily compacted by rainwater (a big problem for me lately) and it also is an invitation for weeds.

Non-determinate varieties deliver over a wider range of time and usually once they reach the days to maturity number they will produce until they die or have a serious disagreement with the weather. I've noticed non-determinate fruits and veggies usually grow on vines, which is nice because it means you can grow them upwards and save valuable horizontal space. The disadvantage of this is that with non-determinate varieties you usually only get a few fruits at a time, so if its something like green beans or peas, where you will be eating more than 2 or three per serving, plant a lot of vines.

There are of course charts and recommendations for time between plantings
of determinate varieties like corn, lettuce etc. but again, (and please don't think this is a cop out) I think its just better to pull out a calendar and a seed catalog, and mark your estimated planting times and harvest times based on the dtm#, take copious notes of when you planted and harvested, and then try again next year. And if you mark the estimated first frost date of the year on the calendar and count backwards to your harvest times, you might find you can squeeze in another crop of something else? Our ancestors did this their whole lives, they grew up doing it, so it came naturally. We just need to remember what is actually possible.

I referenced green beans a lot because so far I have had the most success with getting a large and somewhat steady supply of it. At least until now when 3 weeks of cold and wet has interrupted my plans. Live and learn.