Topic: Crop rotation

[valentinelow]

I am finding crop rotation rather easier in principle than practice.
We - Mrs Low and myself - have divided our allotment into four beds, and operate a four year rotation: potatoes, peas and beans, brassicas, onions and root vegetables.
The problem is this: the brassicas tend to be stuff which overwinters, but we like to plant our onions and garlic - which follow the brassicas in the rotation - in the late autumn (well, it worked for us last year, and we are not going to change a winning system!).
So what happens is that the bed where we want to plant our onions and garlic is already full of brassicas. We managed to fit them in this year, but it was a tight squeeze and we had to plant the onions more closely than we would have liked.
Has anyone else come up with this problem? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help...

Valentine

[Curryandchips]

This is a problem that could torment you forever. What you may end doing is moving some of the crops into other beds purely for space reasons. Remember that crop rotation is not a hard and fast system, it is there purely to maintain the health of the plot, and because there are many different systems, there are as many ways to maintain the plot. I dont experience your problem myself because my brassicas are all cleared (except broccoli) by the time I want to plant my earliest replacement crops in mid march.

[MikeB]

Hi Valentine,

Try

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,57/topic,14631.0

Mikeb

[supersprout]

Curry, I think you hit nail on head - rotation is there to help keep the soil healthy, and to provide good growing conditions for your favourite foods (manure, pea root nitrogen, lime) in some sort of logical order.
However, I've no serious probs with eelworm, blight, club root or the real nasties - I might have to revise my view if this happened.

It's easy to run out of space even if you've done the maths; I do try to keep broadly to rotation at the planning stage, but in the heat of the season, will plant wherever there's room (crops can be late or early, unplanned goodies can arrive at any point in the season, things can grow bigger than expected etc.  :o). Some peeps on the forum seem to resort to ingenious containers for overspill (builders bags/buckets etc.). I also practice a tall and short rotation, for the north and south ends of my plot respectively, how mad is that  ;)
If you eat leafy veg or roots as babies  :'(, and intercrop where you et, it makes room for intercropping with other veg.
When I tried a computer assisted rotation program recently it felt like I had painted myself into a corner  >:(, so now I just keep bed records to make sure I'm keeping the soil healthy, and to know what crops are likely to enjoy it.
Joy Larkcomb says (prob. tongue in cheek) that a way around rotation probs is to grow something in the same place every year until you get trouble and then never grow that crop there again  ;D ;D
You're not alone!

[amanda21]

As a newbie to growing veg this crop rotation business plays on my mind too!  :-\  It kind of has this big scary reputation....follow or be evicted with some dreaded disease!   :'(   

I am worrying that I didn't know what was planted last year and where on my plot so what if I do the unthinkable and plant my broccoli where other brassicas might have dared to tread recently?!  It's the stuff of restless nights! 

I do know that it isn't totally set in stone and that nobody is going to come along and haul me off the site when they spy my extra rows of carrots sneakily sown everywhere but still....... ???

[busy_lizzie]

We do a three year cycle on our plot,  because we are trying to be as organic as possible, and it seems a sensible thing not to encourage disease in our soil. Also if you do things in the proper order then you can leave the right nutrients in the ground for the follwing crop.  I agree with a lot of the posters though, it is not always easy to follow it strictly, as quite often you have a spot left that you squash something else in, to use the space, or something else happens to  muck up your system.  We just do the best we can too.  I don't think gardening can ever be an exact science, so I wouldn't worry about it.   :) busy_lizzie

[grawrc]

Supersprout I have hard that suggestion too: just plant in the same place until a problem occurs then change. Have to say I'm not totally convinced. Something like white rot could last 20 years. Mind you my 4 year rotation wouldn't really help there either would it?

I can do the basic rotation Ok actually, it's the catch cropping and the intercropping and all that that confuses me. ::) ::) ::)

[Svea]

i am using a 6 bed rotation plan, which is roughly dived into three groups. that's two beds for brassicas, two for beans onions and two for potatos, roots, and misc.
i have all overwintering brassicas in one bed and all the autumn cleared ones in another - this means one bed of my brassicas has been cleared by the time i want to put in the next early rotation. does this make sense?

as regard to successional growing, after i had cleared my early potatos, i planted squashes, and once they cleared in autumn, in went the onions and garlic. the leeks had already been added at the other end of the same bed, following the harvest of my main crop potatos.

the only things currently in growth are the onions/garlic/leeks in one bed, and the purple sprouting brocc in another. this will be cleared by end march when my ealry potatoes go in (that's the plan, anyways)

[MikeB]

Hi Svea,

I've got exactly the same rotation plan, 6 years and 12 beds.  I guess I'm not so dumb after all.

[grawrc]

Oh dear! i'm feeling dizzy.... ;D ;D

[fbgrifter]

I have just taken on my secon plot and divided everything up into 4 large beds thinking I was being clever by simplifying crop rotatation.  Then when I started to do my planning, I realised I had the same problem -where does the overwintering stuff go?

So now I split each bed into 2 - A & B and this is how I work my rotation

ROOTS

A - overwintered brassicas >>Spinach, carrots, parsnips, leeks, fennel, beetroot >>followed by>> early potatoes
B - Onions, garlic, early carrots, baby spinach, salad>>annual rye>> early potatoes

POTATOES

A - early potatoes >> sweetcorn, squash, peppers, aubs>> overwintering peas
B - early potatoes >> pumpkins >> annual rye

LEGUME

A - overwintering peas >> peas and beans >> overwintering brassicas
B - peas and beans >> winter tares

BRASSICA

A - overwintered brassicas >> quick growing brassicas out before autumn  >> onions, garlic, overwintering carrots
B - quick growing brassicas  >> overwintering brassicas

Does that make sense?

[grawrc]

YEs. I have 4 beds for each section of the rotation so I guess I could do that too. Thanks.

[supersprout]

At the risk of more dizziness, here's the very broad plan for rotating high and low plants on my plot (the idea is to maximise light on the North-South plot - the plan stops me making silly mistakes like I did this year planting tall sprouting brocc in the middle of the plot and growing beans in the shade  >:(). The rotation can be 4-6 years, depending on what I fancy growing.

'Sun Blocker' rotation (for tall plants or grown e.g. on trellis, frames or canes): tomatoes > sweetcorn > squash > tall beans/peas > tall brassicas. I do this broadly at the north/north west end of the plot.

'Low Grower' rotation: peppers/aubergines/spuds > brassica > radishes/Oriental greens/salady things > onions/beets > bush beans/dwarf peas > carrots/parsnip. I plant low growers at the south end.

[Robert_Brenchley]

The main thing is to try to avoid growing similar crops on the same spot two years running. I'm very disorganised about rotation, and when I was very short of usable beds last year I did plant leeks in a bed I'd just taken onions out of. They were prefectly OK, but don't follow my example! Right now I'm well ahead of myself with the digging, and it should be a lot better this year. You don't need to be too rigid with it, but do keep shifting crops about from year to year.

[keef]

Ah... you need to get a Crop Rotator (patent), invented by John Lloyd in the 14th century.

[jonny211]

I must admit as a new boy to allotments the whole rotation and timing thing is making my head hurt but thanks fbgrifter - I'll try your AB system and see what happens... not sure where to put my tomatoes in though. Should they be kept away from potatoes for other reasons than blight?

Jon

[dirtyfingernails]

thanks fb, that's the first time I've understood something on succession planting - am going to print it out and keep it in my shed!

[supersprout]

not sure where to put my tomatoes in though. Should they be kept away from potatoes for other reasons than blight?

Hello jon, there are three reasons I have come across: a) because they're the same family, they should be kept separate cos of blight, b) shouldn't be planted in the same place in successive years.and c) apparently they quarrel/ make bad companion plants if planted together.

[fbgrifter]

i keep toms in separate growbags because we get awful blight

[grawrc]

I think someone in another thread said they erected a canopy over outdoor tomatoes to protect them from blight? Anyone remember?