Warning - seriously geeky gardening post! There are a number of techniques for getting the maximum crop out of a kitchen garden. In "Catch Cropping" as soon as a crop has finished, you clear the ground and plant something else. I take it one step further. I don't wait for crop A to finish, I sow seeds for crop B during the last few weeks of crop A's life. Here's an example: Mid February: Sow Broad Beans Early July: Sow Dwarf Beans seed under the still growing Broad Beans. For the first half of July, the Dwarf Beans stay underground doing whatever Dwarf Beans do when they only just been sown. Mid July: Broad Bean harvest finished, cut them down. Dwarf Beans start to show Autumn: Harvest Dwarf Beans. Disadvantages? Yeah, there's a few: Those of an organic bent will know that you are supposed to dig in Broad Bean plants after harvest. With this system you can't do that directly. You'd have to dig them in on some other part of the garden or just put them ...