Seven steps to a potager plot

4. Rotate your crops
Plant your cold hardy veggies (peas, lettuce, spinach, radish, onions, etc.) in early spring, as soon as the soil can be worked. Follow with the heat lovers (tomatoes, peppers, beans, basil, etc.) when the danger of frost has passed and the soil is warm. This allows you to fill the garden with lettuce mosaics until it’s time to make room for the peppers.

My garden also includes a few perennial edibles (chives, rhubarb, tarragon), which are situated at the edges so I can change the plantings in the main body of the garden yearly for crop rotation­—it’s unwise to plant the same vegetable in the same place year after year.