Market Garden Crop Plan and Planting Schedule

Divide the crop's harvest window duration by its days to maturity to establish the frequency of your sowings. For most cut-and-come-again salad greens in mild weather, this requires seeding a new batch every 7 to 10 days. Adjust this interval to 14 days during cooler spring or autumn months when plant growth naturally slows down.

Days to maturity from seed counts the days from direct-sowing into the garden soil until harvest, typically used for crops like carrots and radishes. For transplanted crops like tomatoes or peppers, this metric only begins counting once the seedling is planted out into the field. Greenhouse propagation time must be calculated separately and added to your overall schedule.

Multiply your target weekly yield in pounds by the crop's average yield per foot, then multiply that by the number of weeks you plan to harvest. For example, if you need 50 pounds of carrots weekly and average yield is 1.5 pounds per foot, you must plant 33.3 linear feet of carrots for each harvest week. Always add a ten percent buffer to your total bed calculations to account for crop losses.

Shift your spring planting dates two to four weeks earlier and your autumn plantings two to four weeks later than your open-field schedule. High tunnels trap solar radiation, raising both soil and air temperatures to mimic a warmer microclimate. Keep seeding intervals tighter in these structures to maximize the financial return on your protected growing space.