Three or Four Crops a Year? Yes, yes, yes - maybe yes

by Virgil Adams

    The kids are gone. The neighbors have gardens. Your friends don't want any more zucchini. So you cut your garden in half.

     What then?

    You begin to think, "How can I grow more food in less space?" You may even get the idea that you can grow just as much as when you planted every square foot of the garden.

    It is called maximum use of resources. Efficiency, if you will.

    I have been thinking about this and have decided the sky's the limit. In the garden, at the office or down at the factory, production is limited only by our imaginations.

    Two ideas that will help us hit a higher target are succession planting and companion planting.

    Succession means sequence. It simply means planting a second crop on the same land soon after the first crop is harvested.

    The question is, how many second crops can we grow on the same land in a single year? Two? Three? Four? Are five - even six - possible?

    I challenge you to answer this question in your back yard in 1992, and then share the results with us at the end of the year. Why, we may teach gardeners to grow enough vegetables for themselves and one needy family, plus an elderly couple who can't work the soil anymore. We may show American agriculture experts how to double (triple?) production, lower food prices and feed a hungry world. Let me hear from you.

    When I was a boy growing up on a farm in western Tennessee, my daddy and granddaddy worked and prayed for one good crop and were very thankful when the good Lord allowed it. Later, in the garden, I remember them sowing a fall turnip patch where the green beans had grown earlier, and that was my introduction to double-cropping, or succession planting.

    The idea that I might improve on this came to me after I moved to Georgia and realized I was close to paradise as I would ever be. I mean, with more than 200 frost-free growing days, plus a variety of adapted cold-hardy crops, surely I could grow three things on one raised bed in a year.

    So I planted English peas in February, followed with snap beans in May and transplanted broccoli in August. Three very successful harvests convinced me I didn't need to move to sunny Florida, balmy California, or tropical Hawaii.

    Last year the sequence  was English peas, snap beans and Southern peas. After the Southern peas were harvested in October, I planted a mixture of rye and clover. That makes four crops: three to feed the family and one to feed the soil.

    The green manure crop came up in about a week, stayed green all winter and now is ready to turn under to add organic matter and fertility to my efficient, hard-working garden.

    Next week's column will be companion (simultaneous) planting.

Where to write

Send gardening tips to Virgil Adams, Route 4, Box 4024, Jefferson, GA 30549.

The above article originally appeared in the January 10, 1992 issue of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution  in Virgil Adams' Country Gardener column.