Crop Rotation vs. Available Space

[Colin_M]

I understand the reasons for rotating crops around your plot from year to year. Can anyone advise on the best approach during the year?

For example, I have some enviromeshed beds set up with brassicas under them. Some of these (eg: Calabrese) are almost all harvested so there's space in there. I also have some more brassica seedlings ready to plant in the next few weeks.

Howerer I don't have many other places I can put up similar netting. Is it ok to plant such similar crops where some have already been this year? For the sake of the available space, I hope so!

In addition, I guess if I started rotation during the year, I'd be round to the same crop types within 1-2 years, which probably isn't ideal either.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Hello Colin, I wouldn't worry too much about putting some more brassicas in the same place if you haven't had any problems with the present crop. Just rake in some growmore or other fertilizer a few days before you plant the next lot.

I have the same problem this year as I've reduced the vegetable garden, supposedly to make less work, but now the winter brassicas are ready for transplanting before the potatoes have come out. I do try to keep to some sort of rotation but have put more cabbages etc where the early ones have come out without any problems in the past, and will have to do the same with some of them this year.

[alan refail]

Morning Colin

I must be the world's worst rotator, but here are my thoughts.

Outside I only have a "sort of" 2-year rotation: a bed for potatoes and a bed for beans, courgettes and pumpkins. When the early potatoes are out I will probably use the space for a few late courgettes.
The rest I grow in the polytunnel. In there, being 14 foot by 35 foot, rotation is more of an ideal than a practicality; basically tomatoes peppers and cucumbers on one side, salads and all the rest on the other - and swap over next year. Brassicas fit in where they can, often within days of previous brassicas coming out. This has never caused any problems. Having all beds full and productive at all times is much more important to me than rotation.
Rotation is a useful tool, it is not a religion and most people are not struck down for transgressing! The best place for a plant is in the ground available for it.

[Johnboy]

What strikes me as rather amusing is those who are supposed to be growing as nature intended who are those who are very strict on rotation.
Nature never rotates! Nature never intended for the plough or the spade to be invented. It has been the observation of man not nature that brought rotation into being.
Certainly if you have the room to reasonably rotate your crops it certainly will prevent certain pests and diseases reoccurring but if you simply do not have the room then your plants must take the what ever is thrown at them and hope that pests and diseases do not befall your crop.
As for Beans, which I took out of any kind of rotation certainly more than fifteen years ago, without the slightest problem having ever occurring. Runner Beans in rotation can cause great difficulty in gardens due to light problems and on allotments if you are not shading your patch you may well be shading your neighbours patch and can cause problems.
I do not have the space problem but there was always the light to contend with even thought space is no problem.
One way over that is to Grow the variety Hestia which is a dwarf runner.
These give quite a respectable crop of well flavoured beans.
In the tunnels I rather follow the same way as Alan. Having more than one tunnel is a great help though.
JB.

[Elderflower]

I found this very interesting as I always have problems with crop rotation - mainly, I know, due to my lack of organisation skills - although I do try.
I remember my Dad`s tiny back garden where he grew his little patch of new potatoes and runner beans. He had a permanent runner bean support where he dug a trench every year where Mam threw the vegetable peelings and a little bed where he put the spuds in. Then he grew a few cabbages etc after the potatoes were out.
They were simple folk but he never seemed to have any real problems.
Happy days.

[glallotments]

Most people I guess find sticking to a rotationschedule to be difficult and like the rest I don't think it is worth agonising over.

To rotate as experts tell us we need to be growing a similar number of each of the plant families which never happenss.

[Colin_M]

Thanks everyone, I'm much reassured and will fit stuff in on a pragmatic basis.

[freddy]

Good thread, answered a few questions....

[Nature's Babe]

Colin, I agree with Johnboy nature doesn't rotate, or practice monoculture.
make a huge bed of brassicas and it's like inviting all the cabbage white butterflies to a feast ! Fill your gaps with quick growing crops like radishes, salad leaves and turnips etc, the more you can fit in the better weed suppression. I have a couple of beds with mixed up garlic leeks french beans tomatoes, brassicas lettuce melons and tomatillos, no pest problems at all, haven't seen a cabbage white this year, the greens are lurking among friends, it confuses them lol , and it all grows through a mulch to conserve water.

[Mike Vogel]

Colin, I would suggest that you might consider what you want to grow next year and then put in a crop which will benefit next year's crop.

If you mean to grow potatoes, sow a crop of mustard. Dig it in before it flowers and next year the wireworm will feed on it in the soil, pupate and emerge early and fly away before your spuds are raedy to be got at.

If you mean to sow brassicas, grow winter tares or field beans as a green manure. If you want to sow beans, try Phacelia tanacetifolia.

Otherwise just enjoy the space for a late crop of lettuce or carrots, which I am going to sow in a similar bed soon.

Best of luck anyhow.
mike

[Colin_M]

I would suggest that you might consider what you want to grow next year and then put in a crop which will benefit next year's crop.

Hi Mike, yes the above makes sense when thinking about the rotation from year to year.

However my original question was about planting more of the same in a particular patch within the same seaon. For example, as I've harvested calabrese in June/July, I've planted new calabreses plantlets in the same patch of ground. The consensus seems to be that this wouldn't cause a problem.

[Mike Vogel]

Isn't club root the main problem with brassicas? I'd have thought you'd be fine as long as your soil has a good pH [6.5 or higher]. In the same way, some organic growers put tomatoes where they have dug up their early spuds; in this case the blight hasn't had time to attack the spuds, so whatever is in the soil when the toms go in was there anyway.

[Nature's Babe]

Alternative is interplanting and intermixing, I don't know where Johnboy got the idea I crop rotate, as he says nature doesn't rotate, nor do I now. In my synergistic vegetable beds, leeks, onions, lettuce, courgettes, cucumbers, tomatoes and tomatillos artichokes and beans all coexist together,as stuff is harvested something else goes in, my autumn and winter crops next, and at the moment I am trying to get mushrooms growing under the straw, it's like taking companion planting one step further. In autumn I will plant broad beans to up the nitrogen content, no need for fertilisers next year if I do that and leave the roots in the soil to decay and add nutrients and open up water channels.

[Johnboy]

Hi NB,
I didn't know that I did know that you didn't crop rotate. Begorra!
Feeling much better today!
JB.

[Nature's Babe]

Johnboy, I'm really pleased you are feeling better.