I've been trying to plan what to plant, where and when. But I am having difficulty getting my head around this crop rotation business, there is so much conflicting advice out there. One books says don't grow carrots on freshly manured soil, then another book says grow carrots with squash which needs well manured soil. ??? ??? ???
Here is what I plan. Please can anyone see any definite shortcomings with these plans.
Bed 1
Onion sets, garlic, carrots
Bed 2
Potatoes
Bed 3
Peas, followed by Leeks and Self Blanching Celery
Bed 4
Salads (lettuce, chard, spinach, radish) and cauliflower followed by Early Purple Broccoli and Celeriac
At the end of autumn the beds will rotate. I plan to manure all the beds except the bed that will contain the carrots, onion and garlic which would have been manured the previous year. Bed 3 and Bed 4 would have to be manured in late winter or spring, would this be okay if using well rotted manure or compost or should it be done in autumn, don't really have a choice because autumn they will contain crops.
Am I alone in this confusion or are others having a difficult time deciding where and when to rotate things?
PS Beans, Sweetcorn, Squash, Tomatoes and fruit are taken care of in other beds so they don't need to be included in these beds.
No I'm confused as well. You read one thing somewhere and another somewhere else. I just want someone to tell me right, that's ok. My idea was to do Bed One - Potatoes, Bed Two - Peas and Beans, Bed Three Brassiacs and Bed Four Onions, Garlics and Roots. Of course now I'm not sure where to put the sweetcorn, spinach or squash. ???
Stick the sweetcorn & squash in with the beans - Three Sisters.
I am going to run into difficulties with the potatoes. The only bed that hasn't had potatoes this year and last year currently has winter brassicas in. Potatoes don't do well in limed in the previous season soil. This bed had a light dressing of dolomite as the brassica leaves were going purple. Maybe if I add several leaves of comfrey to the trench when I plant out the spuds, and give a few rich foliar feeds or something, perhaps I could get away with it!
Hi,
I'm in the same situation as Multiveg - potatoes to go in where the brassicas are now.
Can someone tell me if this is a REALLY BAD idea as I'm pretty short of space on my half plot. ??? I wasn't aware it was going to be a problem.
Gail
I have also read lots of conflicting information. One of the most conflicting snippets was "don't rotate unless you actually have evidence of a problem" ie. a disease or such like. And then rotate to move affected crops away from affected soil. That's interesting, isn't it?
Anyway your plan looks great. One thing to note from my experience though - brassicas like firm soil so depending on your soil type, it might be a good idea to get that bed prepared before xmas and give it a good squashing down. (We are suffering the results of manuring and digging too late.)
Also another thing I can tell you from my experience: We dug, manured, and the sowed on the same day for both French and Runner beans and they did fabulously.
Sarah.
I think limey soil increases scab on spuds.
I think I read somewhere that if you put a comfrey leaf in the bottom of the hole/trench where you plant the potato tuber, then that helps to control/prevent scab?
Gail M - one thing you have to watch with potatoes following brassicas is that you should only do this if you did not lime for the brassicas, otherwise there may well be sufficient lime residues in the soil to give you scabby potatoes.
Sarah-b, while your `snippet` is correct in some respect, it is not in others.
Runner beans may be (should be) grown in the same place year after year, and the yield inproves as the years go by.
With onions, the main disease is white rot; you can grow your onions in the same place until white rot sets in, then you need to put them in a general 4 year rotation which should allow the disease to clear.
With peas, however, growing in the same place for several years can well result in the build up of pea wilt and downy mildew, both of which can be soil persistent, or, even worse, sclerotina, which is very definitely soil persistent for 10 years or so - this would greatly reduce your options for a future rotation plan.
Potatoes need rotation on at least a 4 year cycle to prevent the build up of eelworm, blackleg, winter resistant forms of blight, etc. Again, yellow eelworm, once it becomes established in the soil can persist for 19 years or so - again reducing your future options for rotation.
Need I go on further?
19 YEARS! Wowzers! I am very unscientific about my rotation....oooo I can sense head shaking and disaproving sighs! Runner beans, same place, everything else, where ever there is a vacant spot! I know where my onions, spuds and cabbages were/are, so they won't go in the same place next year, but lettuces, carrots and other roots, and other odds and sods get plonked in where ever there is the weed free room for them. Not ideal, that I know, but sometimes I am on a tight planting schedule, so I don't have time to prepare.