Topic: Does everyone rotate?

[slippy fly]

This is our 1st year of allotment gardening and I'm wondering how important is it to rotate.Is their certain crops that can be grown in the same bed every year or do you have to stick to a strict rotation of crops.I have been told to grow leeks once I have dug up my potatoes, has anyone got any other tips like this?

[Svea]

every book has them - it's important to rotate - unless you have a small space in which case you dont have to rotate until a problem presents itself.

do you see where i am going with this?

i rotate to the best of my abilities, but wont use any sleep over it if i have to break the rules. i use a bed for a whole year - autumn to autumn usually - for one rotation group.

like has been suggested to you - i followed my early pots with leeks last year on one half - while the other half had squashes on it after the pots. in that half i then planted o/w onions and garlic in late autumn. so the root bed had become a allium bed then. this year, it's the bean bed - ok, so i didnt use it for a whole year in that same group - but you get the drift. i have had some peas in since april - they come out v. soon now and i will follow with more legume there, or somethingneutral, until i do something else again in the autumn (o/w/ brassicas perhaps)

i have read joy larkcom's 'grow your own vegetables' which after reading three times, i finally got (i think) :)

[artichoke]

I am casual about rotating. The allotment is small, and I tend to put anything that is ready into any space recently vacated. I am careful not to grow onion type things in the same place every year, and I move beans and peas about because they feed the soil; and if I remember where the potatoes were last year I avoid that space, and the same with cabbagey things. Now that I have a second allotment I might become a little more organised as I dig out its space gradually.

The thought of doing it scientifically, recording it properly, and following a prescribed routine ruins the fun of gardening for me. I am not at all recommending my habits, just confessing to them. Have occasionally had onion rot and the usual germination failures and losses to birds, badgers etc, but on the whole things work.

[moonbells]

I rotate. Have to - even when I only had the half plot with 1/3 being fruit bushes I did a three-year plan. I got smut on my sweetcorn in 2003 so that knocked two beds out of the rotation straightaway (but that's one of the advantages of the bed system - you can work around the diseases. Smut has a 5-year quarantine). 

Since I expanded, I've gone to nominal 5-year but things still get out of kilter. Best thing is to keep careful records and drawings.

moonbells

[Robert_Brenchley]

Sort of. Some crops like runner beans don't need it, since they don't have any significant diseases in the UK. Others need it badly as disease can build up in the soil. I'm always running out of space and having to break the rules, but I avoid growing anything on the same spot two years in a row if I can, and if I can't, it's going to be something like sweet corn that doesn't have disease problems.

[supersprout]

My approach is similar to Robert's - I have also hammered in battens marked 'NO ONIONS TIL 2009' on the beds affected by onion white rot :-[

[laurieuk]

I do not repeat potatoes or brassicas but my runner bean-row has been in the same place for 20 years and I had a good site for onions in another garden and grew onions there for 14 years. I did get white rot once but during the winter I used formaldihide and had no further trouble

[moonbells]

Sort of. Some crops like runner beans don't need it, since they don't have any significant diseases in the UK. Others need it badly as disease can build up in the soil. I'm always running out of space and having to break the rules, but I avoid growing anything on the same spot two years in a row if I can, and if I can't, it's going to be something like sweet corn that doesn't have disease problems.

...except smut!

Usually nothing to worry about in a normal summer - it's the hot conditions that trigger that particular problem, hence I got it in 2003.

moonbells

[redimp]

Bet you can't use formaldahyde anymore - things like white rot and club root would be the only things I would break the organic rule for but there isn't even a legal non-organic solution.

I am religious rotator and rotate everything over a four year plan - legumes, brassicas, roots and alliums, solanums.

[busy_lizzie]

We always rotate, at least on a 3 year plan. The only thing I plant here and there to use the space are salad crops.  busy_lizzie

[Mrs Ava]

Loosely.  I move my spuds, onions and brassicas on a half plot each year (I have 2 plots and work in a circle if you see what I mean.)  Other things, like salad, roots, peas, beans, flowers and so on, get worked in when and where a patch is available.  I don't sow in regimented rows, I tend to plant in blocks, or broadcast sow in blocks.  The plot already has most pests and diseases, if I didn't grow affected plants for the correct time, I think i would only grow radish....and the blinking flea beetles would have them!  ;D

[Rosyred]

Could cabbages go in after first earlies spuds? or PSB as they are there still next year as I don't want them in the way to grow potatoes. Were my beans are my spuds are going there next year. My leeks could go in another bed. When do you harvest leeks mine are like weeds still?

[Svea]

leeks get sown in the spring/early sumr, planted out in summer, and harvested from november on til march/april time. ish

i always follow the legumes with the brassicas, then the roots. loosely.
i figure the brassicas have more need of the nitrogen than pots.

[flossie]

I try ...

move potatoes, onions, tomatoes and brassicas around but can't manage a "proper rotation"

Always get enough to feed us buy very little veg at all

[Growbe]

Rotation is always a good idea but in all honesty with an allotment it is such a small area that spores can be carried across so easily on the bottom of a wellington boot that it almost makes the process obsolete.

However before everyone starts shouting at me please folks do try the best you can with rotation as any type of prevention is a help.

I have tried a new/old technique this year where you plant Brussels Sprouts between runner beans. It saves on space and the nitrogen from the old beans feeds the brassicas. Now I am still working out the crop rotation in this case - Potatoes next year ;)

[tilts]

I thought that it was better to plant brassicas in firm ground, does this mean that you can't put them where spuds have been ~ because they break up the soil? Hence, no firm ground.......

[Svea]

for what it's worth, i have beans which i dont pull up but cut off at ground level (leaving the roots in the soil), this is followed by brassicas without digging over, which is then folowed by potatos/root crops.

but everyone rotates however they feel is best :)

[supersprout]

Just had a brainwave :)
I plant e.g. beans in succession in one bed, which means that the bed gradually becomes available for other crops and I end up with several part-empty beds.
Next year I'll sow a whole bed every month with e.g. broadies, peas and mangetout, so when they get harvested the whole bed is free for replanting e.g. brassica and leeks ;D

[growmore]

Cabbages/psb can follow first early spuds.Just tamp ground around plant  as you set them out ...Jim