Crop Rotation

One of the keys to successful gardening is crop rotation. Different plants take different things out of the soil and add other things. To prevent your garden from becoming exhausted from season to season, crops are rotated.

Crop rotation allows you to naturally interrupt the life cycle of pests so they cannot become established. Of course, this applies only the to annual plantings, not the perennial plants, such as asparagus.

Separate the garden into sections. Anything from 4-8 areas can be entertained. They can be part of one bed, or they can be a group of beds. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you rotate the crops around the beds systematically. Counterclockwise is generally the rule of thumb for crop rotation.

The suggestions here will be put in very broad terms. It is impossible to predict every combination of vegetables that you will want to grow, but the principles are fairly straight forward.

Plant like with like. Divide your plants into families, as they generally get along together and they need broadly similar conditions. Root crops, acidic plants, legumes, leafy, cucubits, brassicas

Treat the area for exactly what it is expected to grow. Root crops like an alkaline soil, so add a bit of lime and hold back on the manure. Tomatoes and eggplant like acidic soil, so plenty of feeding and manure is good. Legume crops love nitrogen so feed them often. They will leave the soil loaded with nitrogen which sets the bed up perfectly for the following brassicas and leafy greens. This helps to simplify the ongoing care and feeding of the plants as well.

Keep a written record of what you plan and make notes on what actually happens. This will provide a running diary of small corrections that will arrive, eventually, at perfection (you wish!)

Salad greens can pretty much go anywhere there is room for them. Just don't make it the same spot repeatedly!

Sample outline of crop rotation

So a typical sample 4 bed rotation might look like this:

Bed 1: Root Crops, onions
Bed 2: Legumes (peas, beans), brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts)
Bed 3: Tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum (peppers)
Bed 4: Sweet corn, curcubits (cucumber, melons, pumpkin)

A 6 bed rotation might look like this:

Bed 1: Legumes
Bed 2: Brassicas
Bed 3: Root crops, carrots, parsnips, potatoes
Bed 4: Corn, curcubits
Bed 5: Tomatoes, capsicums, eggplant
Bed 6: Green manure crop

Crop rotation is another consideration to put into your planning stage. Rotation is important if you are going to control pests and disease in the garden naturally, as it doesn't allow them to get a foothold.

Don't be too rigid in your classifications if you don't have enough room to make clear demarcations. Just make sure you keep it moving season after season.

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