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Sowing

Successional sowing

The short answer

Successional sowing means sowing a crop in small batches every few weeks, usually every fortnight, instead of all at once, so it crops steadily instead of in one glut. It suits quick crops: lettuce, salad leaves, radish, carrots, beetroot, peas, French beans, spinach and salad onions. Outdoors, RHS sows from mid-spring to late summer.

A packet of lettuce sown in one go gives thirty lettuces in the same week. Sown a pinch at a time, it gives a few every week all summer. Here are the intervals RHS gives, crop by crop, and the crops that don't need it.

How often, crop by crop

Successional sowing intervals
CropSow again everySowing season
LettuceFortnight; three weeks in early spring, up to weekly in warm, moist summersLate March to late July for summer and autumn
Cut-and-come-again saladsTwo weeksUntil late August
CarrotsThree to four weeksApril to early July
Salad (spring) onionsA couple of weeksFrom March
RadishA few weeksSpring, early summer and late summer
BeetrootA few weeksSpring to mid-summer
PeasA few weeksMarch to June
SpinachA few weeksSpring, and late summer to autumn
Rocket, salad leaves, turnipsA few weeksSpring to late summer
French beansRHS: several sowings, no interval. Garden Organic: three weeksLate spring to mid-summer
RHS crop guides and successional sowing page; Garden Organic for French beans.

A better trigger than the calendar

  • Sow the next batch when the last one is well developed. Weather can make sowings two weeks apart mature together.(RHS)
  • Rough guide: leafy crops at four true leaves, peas at 5cm, beans about 10cm tall.(RHS)

Which crops need it, and which don’t

  • Quick-maturing crops such as carrots, French beans, peas, salads and spinach are best sown little and often.(RHS)
  • Crops that bolt such as coriander, rocket and spinach benefit most.(RHS)
  • Not needed for crops that fruit over a long period, good storers, and long-season winter vegetables.(RHS)
  • Peas have a shortcut: one sowing of both an early and a maincrop variety, which mature at different times.(RHS)

Making each sowing go further

The last date a sowing still pays, for your frost date: last sowing date. What can go into a bed that has just cleared: what to plant after a crop.

  • Cut and come again. Snip leaves 2.5cm from the base, avoiding the growing point, for several harvests from one sowing.(RHS)
  • Two or three pickings from each sowing of salad leaves.(RHS)
  • Oriental leaves such as pak choi and mizuna are best sown from mid-summer.(RHS)
  • Late sowings where a crop has already been lifted: dig in a general-purpose fertiliser first.(RHS)

Keep track of every sowing, free

Vercro keeps a record of what you have sown, bed by bed, and Today shows what each of your crops needs next.

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Where this comes from

The growing advice on this page comes from the published sources below, each linked beside the point it supports. Where two good sources disagree, we show both rather than choosing the convenient one. Reviewed 19 September 2026.