How to Grow Vegetables in Containers From Spring to Fall

Yes, you can grow a lot of veggies in containers using these succession planting plans to get continuous harvests from spring to fall. See what you can grow on your patio or balcony.

Also see 20 Fast-Growing Vegetables for Spring or Fall and How to Grow Your First Vegetable Garden (Right Now) for more beginner tips. 

Growing Veggies in Containers

Thank you to Jessica Walliser, author of
Container Gardening Complete for this article.
Images are used with permission from Quarto Publishing Group who also provided a review copy of the book. 

Big Yields from a Container Vegetable Garden

If you want big yields from a container vegetable garden, you’ll have to think outside the box.

Even a modestly sized container vegetable garden can produce bushels of homegrown produce.

But, for that to happen, it’s essential that you carefully consider the varieties you plant and employ smart succession planting techniques.

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10 Vegetable Combinations for Container Growing

To get you started on the road to productive succession planting in a container garden, here are 10 excellent plant partnerships to try.

Succession Planting Ideas

1. Arugula → Peppers, Eggplant, Snap Beans
2. Radish → Summer Peppers, Basil, Snap Beans
3. Shell or Snap Peas → Pole Beans
4. Potato → Broccoli, Cabbage, Collards
5. Spinach → Annual Herbs
6. Onions → Kale, Turnips, Mustard Greens
7. Carrots → Cucumbers, Summer Squash (bush type)
8. Lettuce → Beets
9. Asian Greens → New Zealand or Malabar Spinach, Swiss Chard
10. Kohlrabi → Zucchini, Cucumber

• Arugula is an excellent vegetable for succession planting. It’s a cool-season, fast-maturing crop best grown in the early spring or late fall. Good warm-season succession crops to plant before or after it include peppers, eggplants, or snap beans.
• If you grow onions in containers, they’ll be ready to pull in midsummer. Follow your onions with a sowing of kale, turnips, or mustard greens. You can harvest these cold-weather crops well into the autumn.
• Radishes are one of the best crops to employ in a succession planting plan. Their fast maturation time means you’ll have plenty of time to grow a second crop in the same container. Try following them with a planting of summer peppers, basil, or snap beans.
• Carrots are a good crop to use for succession planting. Sow the seeds in very early spring and they’ll be ready to harvest about six weeks later, giving you plenty of time to plant cucumbers or a bush-type summer squash in their place.

Related: Get Your Weekly Vegetable Seed Sowing Plan Here

• After container-grown shell or snap peas have finished producing in early summer, pull the plants and sow a variety of pole beans in their place. They can share the same container trellis.
• Follow a spring planting of lettuce with a crop of beets. Planted in mid- to late-summer, this root crop produces both edible greens and roots.
• After your spring-planted, container-grown potato crop has been dug and stored in mid summer, use the same pot to grow a fall crop of broccoli, cabbage, or collards. Plant nursery-grown or homegrown transplants into the container soon after the taters are removed to give the plants enough time to mature before the season ends.
• When spring-sown Asian greens, such as tatsoi or pac choy, have been harvested from a container, plant seeds of heat-tolerant greens, such as New Zealand spinach, Malabar spinach, and Swiss chard in their place.
• Spring spinach plants are finished producing in most climates by late June. To fill in the blank they leave behind, sow annual herbs, like caraway, anise, and dill, in their place.
• Kohlrabi can also be planted as a late-season container crop, after the harvest of summer zucchini or cucumbers is complete.

What is Succession Planting?

Succession planting is a system that’s often used in in-ground gardens, but many gardeners don’t know that succession planting is also a smart practice for a container vegetable garden, too. Basically, when one crop is harvested, another is planted in its place, maximizing productive space and yields.

Related: What is Companion Planting? See Science-based Examples Here

Both succession planting in containers and in in-ground gardens is possible because most vegetable crops prefer particular growing conditions. Any given crop could be a cool-season plant that prefers the cooler temperatures of spring and fall, or a warm-season plant that thrives in the heat of summer (some crops, such as carrots, beets, and chard, fit into both categories because they thrive in both cool and warm weather).

Succession planting makes use of these growing preferences by partnering two or more crops based on their preferred growing season and speed of growth.

 Succession Planting Tips

There are three different ways you can utilize succession planting in a container vegetable garden:

1. A fast-maturing, cool-weather crop is planted in the early spring and then is followed by one that requires a longer, warmer growing season.
2. A slow-maturing summer crop is planted soon after the danger of frost has passed. After it’s been harvested, a fast-maturing, cool weather-loving crop is planted in its place.
3. A third succession planting method involves two, three, or even four fast-maturing crops being planted in quick succession, with a new crop being planted as soon as the previous one has been harvested.

Of course, for succession planting in a container vegetable garden to be successful, you need impeccable timing.

Get Your Timing Right

The key to success with all of this is in varietal selection for sure, but more importantly, it’s in the timing. If you plant something too late, there won’t be enough time for that crop and the subsequent one to mature before the season ends. On the flip side, if you plant a crop too early, before the weather is suitable, there could also be consequences. Succession planting must be timed perfectly.

To do this, turn to your calendar and the seed packets from the crops you intend to plant. Use the “Days to Maturity” found on the seed packets to determine how long each crop will take to mature. Make sure your growing season is long enough to accommodate both crops, and then determine the optimum planting time for each succession partner based on your average frost dates and those “Days to Maturity” numbers.

Related: How to Read Seed Packets for New Gardeners

It does take a good bit of finessing and experimenting to figure out the best timing, so take lots of notes. Once you get the hang of it, succession planting can lead to big yields in container gardens.

Soil Care

It’s very important to pay attention to your soil when succession planting in containers. Growing multiple crops in a single season in the same container depletes soil nutrients very rapidly.

In between plantings, add a few tablespoons full of granular organic fertilizer to each container (see the Guide to Organic Fertilizers here).

Also, top off the pot with a shovelful of finished compost. And be sure that at the start of the gardening season, you’re filling your containers with a 50/50 blend of high-quality potting soil and compost. You should also use a liquid organic fertilizer, such as kelp or fish emulsion, every few weeks throughout the growing season.

As you can see, succession planting in a container garden is an excellent way to increase yields and extend the harvest.

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