[spudlover]

if you got too many plants give them alway to plot holders on your site.new plot holder always need a hand last year have about 90 sweetcorn plants all ready to go to my plot i only need about 50 of them.thinking i give about 40 away had some one line up for them.left them out in my garden.woke up to see a fox had played with them in the night.i had only about 20 left very upset that morning. it was a bit late to grow some more on. now i always grow more than i need now. only down side of grow too many and give them away. that you are going hard work growing from seeding to plants andyou are  paying for the compost and seeds.paul

[DD.]

From the OP's latest post, it's evident that he is referring to following like with like for fast growing crops. Things like sweetcorn are not suited to this as they have a long growing season.

This is how I sow lettuce sucessively

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=102476.msg1145741#msg1145741

It can be used for some, but not all crops.

[compostqueen]

You can rig up a seed tray(s) for salads and leafy oriental veg for successional sowing at home and stick labels in Week 1, Week 2 etc and sow across the width of the tray.  Use these as cut and come again, cutting and sowing successionally. It just gets you into the habit

You can do the same above but with other veg that you want to plant out but the principle is the same.  Having the markers in the trays just serves as a reminder to sow more next week

You just have to remember to visit where your seed trays are 

[JayG]

Agree - successional sowing is probably better described as "staggered" sowing, and obviously only works with crops which mature quickly enough to be able to do that in our relatively short summers.

I do "stagger sow" runner beans and sweet corn though, but only by about 2 weeks - although there's a tendency for the later ones to catch up the first I do find that it prolongs the cropping season of the runners, and the later sweet corn can help with pollinating some of the earlier ones if planted adjacent to them.

Didn't work last year with the sweet corn though - they all ran out of "summer" and there was no "Indian summer" to come to the rescue - only got about half the crop I was hoping for (runner beans were good though.) 

[maxie]

Its always a case of running out of room for me,some crops like taties,peas,carrots and brassicas need a bit of room and need a longish growing season,by the time these are out theres no time for another crop with a decent growing time to follow on,so your basically stuck with one crop for most of the season.
Leeks following spuds are the classic one,and i always like to grow carrots where the leeks have been the followin year as they break the ground up well.
I always plant a few lettuce in among my cabbages,sweetcorn etc,by the time they are a fair size the lettuce have been eaten,i can remember having a 40 foot row of little gem all ready at the same time years ago 

[compostqueen]

For me it was Hispi cabbages all at once    I mean really!  I do like cabbage but for every meal    It serves as a reminder though as I've not done it since 

[JayG]

Last year's "summer" weather was a bit of a plan-wrecker for me - I usually plant out the leeks to follow the early potatoes, but the spuds were so late I had to shoehorn them in somewhere else! 

[marcofez]

Watched this today! http://thehorticulturalchannel.info/2013/03/ep10-march-week-2/
Sean has some good ideas about what he does and something I'm considering

[Lulu]

Last year I ended up with 12 cabbages ready at once, and then 8 cauliflowers 

So this year I am going to try to grow 3 of each brassica per month - so far have planted 3 PSP, 3 cabbages, 3 Romanesco (though lord knows why I bothered with that!) 3 cauliflowers and 3 broccoli.  Transplanted them into pots yesterday - another experiment for this year (there seems to be a lot of that with me this year  ).  I do manage to successfully manage my salads though but they are at my house.  Would be good if you could 'stagger' cougettes - mission impossible

[Totty]

It's possible to stagger brassicas but better to do it with different varieties in my opinion. Ie, summer autumn and winter cabbages, rather than trying to spread out the season for one variety.
Courgettes can be staggered. Ideally you have a polytunnel, large greenhouse or cloches for early sown plants, then the later plants go outside. Much longer cropping that way.

Totty