Succession Gardening: Plant, Harvest, Repeat.

Having a long growing season means many crops can be planted more than once!  If you got an early start on summer veggies and they flourish and produce strong, they may start giving out at the end of July or August.  Since our season lasts into October, start some late plants to extend the time you can enjoy your produce.  Fresh seedlings may be hard to come by as the season progresses, but seeds are still an option and so is a technique called layering.

Layering works spectacularly well with tomatoes, and it can also work with cucumbers.  As the existing tomato plants in your garden mature, choose a healthy branch or two at the base of the plant, and gently weigh it down a bit so that it lays on the ground.  If it doesn't reach all the way to the soil, keep a weight on it overnight or for a few days - you could gently lay the handle of a rake or something across it, but be careful not to break, bruise, or tear it off your tomato plant.  Once the branch is in good contact with the soil, pinch the leaves off of a section about 5" long and then shovel soil over that section of the branch.  Leave it for a couple of weeks, making sure the buried portion gets plenty of water, then chop the branch between the parent plant and the part of the branch you have buried.  Leave it for another week so that it gets the idea that it's on its own, then dig up the new plant and put it in its own great sunny spot. 

Or in the case of row crops like corn, okra, or green beans which generally bloom and produce all they are going to within a few weeks and then give out, you might want to seed one row or patch, and then a second one two weeks later, and even a third or fourth round after that.

Herbs such as basil work great in succession as well.  Once herbs bolt, or flower, they are past their prime in flavor and will soon go dormant.  If you scatter basil seeds a little at a time - say on a weekly basis - you'll have a much longer harvest period.  This is a great advantage for herbs that are best used fresh, as you likely wouldn't have need for all that basil at one time!  (Unless of course you are making a lot of pesto.)