Why Little and Often Beats One Big Sowing

Every allotment holder knows the pattern. You sow a generous row of lettuce in April, it all heartens up in the same fortnight, and for three weeks you are eating salad twice a day, pressing bags of it on anyone who stands still long enough. Then, suddenly, the row is over and there is nothing to pick until the next thing matures. Add a mountain of courgettes or a glut of runner beans to the picture and the whole plot starts to feel like a feast-or-famine operation.

Successional sowing is the simple cure. Instead of one big sowing, you sow a small pinch of seed every two or three weeks right through the growing season. Each batch matures in turn, so you harvest just enough for the kitchen and the next lot is already coming on behind it. It is not complicated, it costs no more seed, and it changes the way you eat from the plot between spring and early autumn.

There is a second benefit that matters on a British allotment: small sowings mean small risks. A pinch of lettuce lost to a late frost, a slug raid or a fortnight of drought leaves you with a gap, not a disaster.

Getting the Rhythm Right

Think in intervals rather than dates. How long you leave between sowings depends on how fast the crop grows and how much of it you actually eat.

• Quick crops — radish, rocket, baby leaf salad: sow every 10 to 14 days.
• Medium crops — lettuce, spinach, spring onions, coriander: sow every two to three weeks.
• Slower crops — beetroot, turnip, chard, perpetual spinach: sow every three to four weeks.

Start in March on workable soil, or late February under a cloche or fleece. Keep going until late July or August, then switch to varieties that will stand through the winter. A diary or a note on your phone is genuinely useful here: record the date, the variety and roughly where you sowed, and you will know instinctively when the next batch is due rather than guessing.

The Reliable Trio: Lettuce, Radish and Spinach

Lettuce is the classic succession crop. Loose-leaf types such as 'Salad Bowl' or 'Lollo Rossa' give you cut-and-come-again leaves for weeks from a single sowing; a one-metre row sown with twenty to twenty-five seeds keeps a household in salad for a fortnight. Hearting types like 'Little Gem' want a little more room but are worth a row of their own. In the heat of midsummer, choose bolt-resistant varieties and give the row shade from midday sun — a bit of netting or a taller neighbour crop nearby makes a real difference.

Radish is the fastest reward on the plot, ready in three to four weeks in summer and about five in early spring. A sixty-centimetre row every ten days is ample for most families. Water them steadily: dry soil produces woody, fiery roots. Midsummer sowings do best in partial shade.

Spinach is the one people get wrong, because it bolts as the days lengthen and the weather warms. Treat it as two seasons: sow from March to May, then leave it alone until late July and sow again for autumn pickings. A metre row thinned to ten or fifteen centimetres apart, with outer leaves picked steadily, will crop for weeks. If you want midsummer greens, grow New Zealand spinach instead.

Sow Thickly, Thin Ruthlessly

Rather than broadcasting seed, draw a shallow drill about a centimetre deep with the corner of a hoe, water along it, then sow thinly and cover. Label with the variety and the date — you will not remember in three weeks' time.

Modules work just as well and suit anyone short of space. Sow three or four seeds into a nine-centimetre pot and plant out at the two-leaf stage. You lose the fiddly thinning, you can slot plants into gaps as they appear, and seedlings are far less vulnerable to slugs than a direct-sown row.

Where you do sow direct, thin properly. Lettuce for hearting wants twenty to twenty-five centimetres; cut-and-come-again types can sit at fifteen. Radish needs three centimetres, spinach ten. Do not waste the thinnings — young lettuce and spinach seedlings are perfectly good in a sandwich.

Plugging the Gaps and Keeping Things Moving

Succession sowing works best when you plan the next crop as you clear the last. As a row of radish finishes, that space is ideal for a spinach sowing or a few spring onions. After lettuce, follow with beetroot, turnip or a quick green manure such as mustard if the bed is having a rest.

Keep the top five centimetres of soil moist while seedlings establish, using a watering can with a fine rose rather than a hose at full blast. A thin mulch of compost helps hold that moisture. Cut-and-come-again crops appreciate a weak liquid feed after each cut — comfrey or seaweed diluted in a can is plenty. Net against pigeons, and check for slugs at dusk with a torch after any rain.

Stretching the Season into Autumn

The late sowings matter most, because crops put on growth quickly in warm soil but slow right down as the light fades through September. Sow winter lettuce such as 'Winter Density' or 'Arctic King', lamb's lettuce, land cress and winter spinach in late July and August. These will stand in the ground for months, giving you fresh leaves when little else is available.

Throw a cloche or a double layer of fleece over them in October and you can be picking salad leaves well into the new year on a mild site. Sow a little, sow often, and note what worked — that small discipline is what turns a plot from a summer glut into a kitchen garden that feeds you steadily from March to November.