Tips for Succession Planting Year Round

On this week’s episode, the guys talk about succession planting crops in the vegetable garden for continual harvests throughout the respective growing season for a particular crop. Succession planting is an effective strategy for one-time harvest crops or crops that are continually harvested throughout the growing season. They first discuss succession planting with cool-season crops like lettuce, kohlrabi, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. All crops that mature fast so around 50 days or less. Travis mentions that he likes to succession plant these on 1-month intervals. This means that he will start seeds for these crops every 4 weeks and always have them in the garden throughout the fall and winter growing seasons. In the cooler seasons, crops are less likely to bolt and will hold better in the field. This allows one to harvest vegetables as they need them, instead of having to harvest the entire crop at one time. They also talk about succession planting warm-season crops that decline in production as the plant's age. They specifically mention okra and squash, which tend to be less productive once the plants reach a certain age. To keep that continual high-productivity in their gardens, they will succession plant okra and squash every couple of months to ensure that they have those crops producing throughout the warm growing season.

Show and Tell Segment

On the show and tell segment, Greg has a head of Skyphos lettuce from his garden. Skyphos is a variety of red butterhead lettuce that does really well for them. They have it available in a pelleted seed form which makes it easy to singulate when planting in seed trays. They also show some seed potatoes that they are now carrying on their website. They have four different varieties which include Yukon Gold, Red Norland, Adirondack Blue, and German Butterball. Greg shows several different varieties of shallots. Shallots are a part of the Onion family but have a different species which is allium. They show off a Banana variety that is long and slender. Most people cook this variety by roasting them. Greg is going to plant a few different varieties and test which ones he likes best. When growing shallots they are believed to be less dependent on daylength, unlike onions. However, when storing shallots they store away just like onions do. After testing these shallots out this year, we hope to carry them along with some more seeds in the near future on the website. The guys also show off their new favorite Hoss Gardening gloves which offer comfort, durability, and flexibility. They come in two different colors: Hoss red and kind of pastel green color. We also have different sizes of these gloves for everyone to use in the garden.

Viewer Questions Segment

On the question and answer segment, the guys talk about some upcoming seed varieties that will be posted on the website soon. These include a couple of new varieties of beets. One of the beet varieties called Solo and it is a monogerm variety, which means it does not require thinning like the multigerm varieties. They also have a new beet variety named Kestrel which offers superior disease-resistance and uniformity. Also, some more cucumber and lettuce varieties like the Stonewall and the Calypso and pelleted lettuce seed like Harmony and Calshot. Travis talks about a new variety of sweet corn called Temptress which is what they call a "quad sweet". The "quad sweet" means that it has the heirloom flavor with the modern corn sweetness. Overall, lots of great productive varieties coming to the Hoss Tools website soon.

Tool of the Week

Skyphos Butterhead Lettuce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwwATthMDHw