Help!
I've been trying to understand the rules on crop rotation, but none of them seem to fit what I do.
I have five beds. This year:
bed 1 - roots and summer alliums
bed 2 - spuds and spring-sown broadies
bed 3 - beans, peas and squashes
bed 4 - sweetcorn
bed 5 - overwintering shallots and garlic followed by brassicas
I've been trying to work out how to rotate it all for the next five years, but eventually hit a stumbling block due to my two beds of alliums per year. I've also been trying to make the most of the space by working out when the beds will be free. It's also confusing as a year for, say, spuds is different to a brassica year is different to a carrot year (when you sow successionally).
Year 2 currently goes something like:
bed 1 spuds and sweetcorn (I've ditched the spring-sown broadies after three years of too many blackfly)
bed 2 overwintering garlic and shallots
bed 3 roots and alliums
bed 4 autumn sown broadies
bed 5 legumes and squashes (I don't even know when brassicas from previous year will be finished!)
would this work?
I'm just confusing myself more, the more I think about it!
I always had the same problem when I was including garlic in the rotation. I now grow it in a half bed of it's own, the other half taken up with compost bins. The following year, I swap halves. After a few years of this, I choose a new bed for it (bit like Strawberries really)
Is that any help? Of course if you've only got 5 beds altogether, taking one out means you'll have only 4 to rotate round....
Love and compost
Linda
Aqui,
All rotation "work" some spread the growing of the same families a bit better than others.
The main problem that people experience is that they don't have the same area requirement for the different groups and overwintering crops such as garlic, leeks and brassicas.
From your list you seem to have more legumes and onions than other groups so they need spreading a bit more (at present you have onions in beds 2 & 3 and legumes in beds 4 & 5).
So if your qunatities balance out then a better spread would come from:
bed 1 spuds and sweetcorn
bed 2 overwintering garlic and shallots
bed 3 autumn sown broadies
bed 4 roots and alliums
bed 5 legumes and squashes
In bed 1 you plant spuds and sweetcorn (March - May)(year 1), when you lift them (oct - nov) (year 1), plant the overwintering garlic and shallots
When you lift the garlic & shallots (Jul - Aug)(year 2), you plant autumn broadies (Nov)(year 2),
The roots and alliums would be planted in bed 4 at the same time as you plant the spuds in bed 1 (year 1)
legumes and squashes are planted in bed 5 (year 1), as your last planting of the spring, These will be replaced by the spuds/sweetcorn so you will be able to have some overwintering brassicas
This gives around a 20 month gap between the autrumn broadies and the legumes and the same between the garlic/shallots and the alliums
Bed 3 will be empty from July through to the following Mar - scope for green manure - phacelia is nice
Phil
Linda - no chance of removing a bed as I don't have much room anyway!
THanks Phil - that is helpful. I was planning to include some green manure in the gaps. seems like one bed per year. I'm trying to work it out on a monthly spreadsheet, just so I'm not confusing myself so much. I'm really hoping this'll mean I have something growing in all the beds all the time.