Hi All,
It is my first year on my plot, and the potatoes are due to come up soon. My question, is what follows them? I have done some research, and found that some say brassicas follow, and some say peas, beans and onions. I understand that the brassicas like to follow the legumes, because they fix nitrogen. Help ::)
My brassicas follow my potato,s as that is the main place that got manured this year. I lime every where except where my potato,s are going in next year.
we've planted leeks in the second early bed, and 2 rows of peas :)
I keep trying to read up on crop rotation, and get myself in a spin!!
One day I will write it down, or understand it!!
I have a bed which has parsnups and chard in. The spinach bolted so I pulled it out, so have some room.
I would like to plant garlic, carrot, xmas potatoes, but not entirely sure where they will best be suited.
Too tired now, but better get the books, and pen and paper out tomorrow!
Davy,
what is the importance of liming everywhere?
I didn't manure my potatoes, because it was a new plot, and I had too much to do, but they are fine anyway, apart from a bit of blight i think.
The addition of manure and fertilizer plus heavy cropping tend to increase the acidity of your plot so you lime to reduce the acidity. Gardeners have their own timings and methods, some lime in Autum some in February as lime likes to be left alone
It isn`t necessary to lime everywhere unless the soil pH is below 6.5. Certainly fresh manure will have an acidifying effect, but with well rotted manure the effect is less so. The use of other fertilisers (unless you propose using large quantities of sulphate of amonia) is not likely to have any appreciable acidifying effect as the constituent elements of combined fertilisers are usually balanced against each other. For instance, bone meal and superphosphates, as well as the potassic elements all have an alkaline effect which counterbalances the acidic elements, and poultry manure pellets contain around 9% calcium to balance the acidic effects. Heavy cropping in itself does not in any way alter the basic pH of the soil.
It is therefore only necessary to lime that area which was manured the previous year, allowing 3 years before the next potato crop on that area.
I try and not put the same thing in where I had it before but I can stumped and I didn't have room and had to put caulis where my cabbages had been and they have done ok.
ROSYRED, In gardening the best you can have is a 4 year crop rotation, I work on a 3 year rotation because thats the best i can get. When you are new to gardening it is hard to figure out what to put where so you have to plan well ahead. My three plots for rotation are Potato,s, Onions and brasica,s.
When i do my potato bed i always start by putting my earlies in 2ft away from the north fence as these are the first to be taken out it then gives me a 4ft wide bed to put in my Sprouts, winter cauli,s and any leeks that i may have left. As my Brasica,s follow my Potato,s they are now for me in the right place.. In my Onion bed i will leave a row a little wider than the others to put Carrots in. Other than that nothing else goes in there.
Brasica are the worst to work out if you do not know the habit of the Cauli, cabage etc. For example its no good trying to grow lettuce between a tall Cauli and a large cabage as they will get no light and you will get a bad result. So i always plan so my tallest crop is at the north fence and my lowest furtest south.
I hope this is of some help.
When I was young and lived near fields in the 1950's, I remember stealing the odd potato and eating it raw from the same field for years and years!
Did the farmer know something that we don't know.
How much of the rotation rules are a myth?
http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments1_Myths
They aren`t rules (in the sense of being enforceable) but sensible advice. and don`t forget that crop rotation was being practised a thousand years ago.
Certainly it is sometimes possible to grow the same crop on the same land for years without any serious effects, although probably with diminishing returns, and I knew several farmers who did this 60 or 70 years ago. The plain simple fact of the matter is that if your land wasn`t affected by eelworm or blackleg and your seed potatoes were similarly clean you could get away with cropping potatoes for years on the same field. The problem is that if you have any such infections of even the most minor degree such cropping will result in the minor degree becoming a disastrous major degree. Don`t forget also that in those days there were virtually no restrictions on the chemicals that the grower could use - either before sowing or on the plants.
One possible result of such cultivation was that a survey by one of the major chemical companies two or three years ago revealed that roughly 80% of land now in commercial potato production is now infected by golden eellworm.
The other reason for rotation is simply that as different crops have different nutrient requirements and by rotation the nutritional depletion is kept in balance.
Does that answer your question?
I struggled with this one too. The problem I found was that the books didn't reflect what I was growing. But the books were written a hundred years ago when the balance of what was grown was very different. The normal four-crop rotation is always given as: potatoes, brassicas, legumes & roots.
But I don't grow many brassicas. And I certainly don't grow summer ones. But I do grow tomatoes, courgettes, sweetcorn, squash and probably several dozen other things that weren't grown a century ago. And do I need as much space for carrots as I need for potatoes?
So, over the years, I've evolved my own four-course rotation. And one important thing is that when one crop is cleared, the next is ready to go in.
You lime before you plant the brassicas (on a new plot you probably don't need to). I manure the beds I'm preparing for peas & beans or tomatoes & courgettes; my neighbour Geoff manures his potatoes. He gets fabulous potatoes; I get fabulous peas, beans, tomatoes & courgettes. (Well, not tomatoes this year!!)
Hope this helps, but it probably doesn't. Basically, rotation is an art not a science.
I have followed my potatoes in one bed with my courgettes, marrows and pumpkins.
I have plans to put my winter cabbages etc in other beds.
I accidentily put potatoes in the same bed 2 years running and although the spuds were ok i did find a few volunteers which i found harder to deal with.
I found this link helpful
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/organiccrop/tools2.html
I wanted to crop rotate but it is a bit complicated to line up the summer winter crop changes correctly. I have basically planned for my spring crops to rotate "according to the rules" but I am bunging the winter ones in where I can ;D
Which means that the onions I just pulled have been replaced with winter cabbage and the first spuds by leeks. I put some fertilizing matter in before replanting (one of those very concentrated organic soil improvers). I have decided that because my beans and peas will go where this year's mediterranean veg are, I will cover that plot and bastard trench it over the winter. Once my peas come out I will fertilize and put overwinter garlic. Once the beans are done, that will be polytunnels for winter salad and lamb's lettuce. Any other bare patches I am going to sow green manure to cut down on weeds.
Note to self: next year plan for the whole year, not just the summer!!!
Still I wouldn't panic too much about rotating, it seems to be more important for some things (spuds, tomatoes) than for others. I have planned to have strictly rotating areas and others that will have any leftover stuff bunged in ;)