MORE CROP ROTATION

[AnneThomas]

Hi All - it's a long time since I looked up this forum. Good to see some familiar names still around.

I have a four bed crop rotation: potatoes (followed by salads and over-wintering leeks), roots, brassicas and legumes. So where do I plant my over-wintering onions and garlic - in the bed that has had roots in this year, or should I move them into the bed they will be in next year - which I won't be able to do in practice because it is full of over-wintering leeks.
Thanks
Anne

[Mike Vogel]

Anne, may I take it that you rotate the brassicas after legumes? That way they get the nitrogen from the legumes.

Is the whole of last year's potato plot taken up with leeks now? If not, that's where I would plant the garlic. This means keeping the garlic with the roots, and indeed the garlic might confuse the carrot-fly, but you'll need a lot of garlic per row of carrots.

So far I've found that the main problem working out a rotation is that the spuds take up more room than the other crops, so they end up overtaking them. If you grow a lot of brassicas, than they also need quite a lot of space.

So much depends on how much actual space you have. i've got 2 10-pole plots, so I can employ a 7-year rotation: spuds, legumes, brassicas, garlic, roots, tomatoes, squashes, and lettuce anywhere there's space.

But the spuds are still gradually catching up with the toms, so I now grow early spuds where the toms will be later, a recommendation from some organic growers which seems to work quite well.

good luck
mike

[Magic Beans]

Hello there, sounds like a wonderful challenge to have, trying to find space for yet more crops.

I am just starting out with growing my own vegetables etc and once I have the area clear of nettles I intend to put in four beds. Now my question is with four beds what should occupy each and in what order do you rotate through them?

[Mike Vogel]

Spuds, roots, legumes, brassicas would be my suggestion, MagicBeans, with salad crops going in with the roots or brassicas before the autumn planting. You could include brassicas such as Rocket, Kohl Rabi, Swedes and Hamburg parsley with the roots to avoid the danger of club root affecting those planted later. I tend to divide brassicas into two groups, early and late-for-next-spring, but the whole group is large and needs more space than roots.

Good luck
mike

[AnneThomas]

Thanks for your reply Mike. Sorry I have taken so long to get back but my computer crashed, our village lines crashed and couldn't take all the internet activity - and then it was Christmas. Life is beginning to get back to normal - albeit BT haven't sorted out the lines yet. Now there's a surprise!

I only have 4 relatively small beds and they vary slightly in size. The rotation I am following is as follows:

Potatoes - followed by leeks
Legumes, Curcubits and Sweetcorn
Brassicas
Roots

I am not sure where I got this from. I never quite know what to do with the wintering veg - whether to start it in the new bed as allotted for the next year or in the current year's bed. I guess time will tell as I sort things out.


Yes - the whole of my potato bed was taken up with leeks. I didn't get into my veg garden much last year and when I did, I discovered a whole load of leek seedlings which had self-sown from some leeks left in the ground - these had looked lovely in flower as it happens. I gave loads away and was still left with a lot so filled the bed - albeit planted quite late. They are doing quite well although they did droop quite recently with all the frosts but seem to be recovering.

I intend to grow more potatoes this year, but am planning to do the 1st and 2nd earlies in tubs and use the bed for the maincrop otherwise I won't have enough space.

Oh to have all your space!

Looks like the frost has broken here in Cornwall for the time being. I am beginning to get itchy fingers but am enjoying reading my gardening books, planning and making seed lists for now.

Anne

[Bren]

This rotation lark gets more complicated, I thought roots and spuds were classed as roots, would I be alright if I plant carrots, parsnips and beetroot where I grew potatoes last year? or would that be roots following roots.
Reading Joy Larkcom's book she says not to loose any sleep over rotation so long as you don't follow the same group in the same area in consecutive seasons.
Bren