Great Ways to Increase Your Harvest

Reader Contribution by Anneli Carter-Sundqvist
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The actual footprint of a garden is only one of many factors for how much food that can be produced there. I often get the question if the size of our garden (8,000 sq feet) is what’s needed to feed two people for 12 months. That is a hard question to give an easy answer to since there are so many factors involved. The quality of the soil, the amount of sun and water, the different crop varieties and also, how the space is used. Over the years I’m developing ways of planning my garden so that I can plant in successions and get two or more crops grown and harvested from the same beds without row covers or other plastic materials. It allows me to use all the available space throughout the entire season instead of leaving some open in the early summer to plant my fall crop in and to not use space that opens up as the season progresses.

So in the middle of everything there is to do in August, here at the Deer Isle Hostel and Homestead, I’m already busy planning for the fall garden. As some of the major crops are being harvested – the garlic, the onions and the early potatoes – new space is opening up that can be utilized for fall crops such as Chinese cabbage, rutabagas, turnips and radish.

Succession Planning Examples

Some series of succession planting looks like this:

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