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i'm using 3 plot rotation - roots / brassicas / others
this year's potato + carrot bed is next year's brassica bed
i've started digging up spuds, leaving a lot of empty ground
so do i fill that ground with spuds for christmas or brassicas (caulis) for overwintering?

Either I think. Not sure how you will be sure of keeping the spuds frost free later on though if they are in the ground. I am going to do mine in buckets so they can be moved to the greenhouse or shed if it is due to be frosty

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Isn't the sequence normally brassicas / roots / others?

Not that I suppose it matters provided you are rotating

I normally think of summer as being the time the rotation changes, rather than January. So if I cleared a crop now (from the area is to become Brassicas next year) I would plant Spring Cabbage or something like that [or Lettuce if I didn't have a Spring brassica in mind].

Personally I would avoid two crops of the same type on the same ground - well, I might do Lettuces after lettuces, but not something which is susceptible to one of the biggie diseases like Blight, Clubroot, the nematode thingies ...

I follow legumes with brassicas as brassicas like the nitrogen left on the root nodules of peas & beans.

I follow my spuds with leeks or cabbages.

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Dwell simply ~ love richly

I never follow like with like.........simple is, simple does.

The standard crop rotations allow for you growing similar quantities of brasicas, legumes roots etc. but not everyone likes to eat or grow similar quantities so it needs to be modified to suit the individuals needs.

I personally don't think the fixated nitrogen you get from legumes is a major factor in brassica growth. Do you really want soft growth on your spring cabbages caused by autumn nitro anyway?

I pull up my legume roots and the fixated nitrogen globules are added to the compost along with the roots, helping to activate the compost.

In a nutshell, I would plant anything BUT tatties...........

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Just to chuck in my bit...

I do potatoes followed by leeks or winter rye to overwinter

then

lime the ground and plant peas & beans followed by brassica to overwinter

then

misc stuff (toms, squash, lettuce, sweetcorn) followed by winter rye to overwinter

then

roots inc carrots, parsnips, beetroot followed by a great dollop of manure to overwinter

and we're back to spuds.

Mind you, that's a four bed system I'm working, not 3 bed, so that might not be overly helpful

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Sat 04/10/2008......sorry, Keats......

cheers guys - falling into place now ....
so as i remove the spuds and carrots, i could plant leeks / spring cabbage / rye - and when that comes up in spring we should plant peas / beans etc ??

now we won't eat leeks / spring cabbage / rye - so what else could i put in?? or should i just cover the ground till next year? i don't want or have time to grow stuff i just won't use

and if i'm not doing a second sowing of spuds in the same bed, i'm going to have unused ground and nowhere to plant my very late spuds until the sprouts and caulis are done???

and isn't cabbage a brassica?

What will you use that you can sow or plant now then? I'm sowing swiss chard and winter leaves like perpetual spinach, bau sin, turnip greens at the moment but I'm also planting out sprout plants. Any of those suitable for you? If not, just planting a green manure like rye, phacelia or clover will be better than doing nothing at all.

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Dwell simply ~ love richly

Cabbage is a brassica but I'm sorry I don't understand the relevance?
Do you eat broad beans,onions, garlic, peas, various kales,savoys? all of which could be sown or planted from now on!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

i'm still trying to get my head around the whole follow-on sowing / crop rotation thing

so ..... as roots (spuds) are followed by peas / beans etc .... so i could plant these out now, as i lift the spuds ...... and i would sow more peas / beans etc in that same bed in the spring ... ?

so ... if spuds are followed with peas / beans (legumes etc) then i shouldn't really be planting brassicas (cabbage) there?

"i would sow more peas / beans etc in that same bed in the spring"

Same bed, but NOT following an earlier crop of the same type. Lettuce and some other odds and sods like that don't matter so much, its the things that get diseases like Club Root and Carrot fly / nematodes that crop rotation is designed to give less chance of carrying from one crop to the next - by moving the next crop to land that hasn't seen that crop of 3, 4 or more years (depending on the length of your rotation)

"if spuds are followed with peas / beans (legumes etc) then i shouldn't really be planting brassicas (cabbage) there?"

Well, that's fine, provided that piece of land doesn't see Spuds again for 2 more years and Brassicas for 3 more. However, it becomes harder to remember which bit of land had which crop last, so for simplicity the plot is divided into a number of zones, matching the number of years in the rotation.

Then the preparation of each zone can be appropriate to what it will grow - e.g.

Year 1 : Roots zone - just some fertiliser before planting

Year 2 : Others zone - Manure plus fertiliser before planting

Year 3 : Brassicas zone - lime if the PH is acidic plus fertiliser before planting

but the reality is that no one has exactly the same amount of space requirements for each of the three veg types, so the rules get broken! But keeping the same plant off a particular piece of land for as many years as possible is the goal.

Lots of people plant Runners in the same place every year ...

ummmm not sure if i'm getting there or getting more confused .....

so ......
BED A - i can dig up a row of spuds and replace with a row of peas ..... and in spring, i can replace that row with a row of .... something else NOT peas .... (are you counting peas / beans as same type or did you just mean peas only??)

BED B - currently peas, broad beans, french beans - the peas are dieing off, so i can pull them up now and plant cauliflower to overwinter - and in spring, that cauliflower is cut and replaced with ...... something that's not a brassica??? which leaves me with an empty brassica bed next summer???

BED C - currently brassicas - cauliflowers being cut this weekend, could replace them with very late spuds - and in spring i would have to replace with carrots / parsnips etc?

or have i got it all muddled up and should i stick to just one sowing each year??

Yeah, minefield isn't it.

BED A Spuds, then peas (which is NEXT year's crop planted early). Then next year you should not plant peas, or anything that is attacked by whatever attacks peas [dunno if that included Beans, sorry]

BED B - "currently peas, broad beans, french beans - the peas are dieing off, so i can pull them up now and plant cauliflower to overwinter - and in spring, that cauliflower is cut and replaced with ...... something that's not a brassica???" Definitely not a brassica, as I think all brassicas are able to be affected by the same club root type disease.

I would then plant lettuce or some other catch crop

BED C Your Spring cabbage etc. (which has basically overwintered having been planted after your Peas and Beans last year) is then free for catch cropping until you plant your Spuds (or carrots etc.) next year.

"should i stick to just one sowing each year??"

If you've got loads of space that's OK, of course, but I don't think most people have, and Veg. gardeners tend no to like to see any bare earth!

Here's a bit from "Grow your own vegetables" by Joy Larkcom (scanned, so probably full of typos) :

ROTATION
Traditionally the cornerstone of garden planning - and a key factor in deciding where to grow each vegetable - is the rotation system. This is the practice of grouping together closely related vegetables and growing them in a different bed, or different part of the garden, each year, generally over a three- or four-year cycle, for the following reasons:

Pest and disease control

The main reason for rotation is to prevent the build-up of serious soil pests and diseases. These attack botanically related vegetables, and when their 'host' plants, to use the scientific term, are continually grown in the same soil, they can build up to epidemic proportions. If, however, an unrelated crop is grown in that soil for a few years, their numbers decline - or they fail to build up in serious numbers in the first place. The phenomenon known as soil sickness, where yields gradually decline year after year, is generally caused by soil pests such as eelworm (nematodes) and soil-borne diseases such as clubroot and onion white rot. (Clubroot can persist for twenty years; onion white rot for eight.) Rotation is the best form of preventive medicine. Rotation should also be practised in greenhouses and polytunnels. Soil sickness frequently develops if tomatoes, and related crops such as peppers and aubergines, are grown in the same soil for three or more consecutive years.

Soil fertility

Leguminous crops such as peas and most beans contribute to soil fertility by releasing nitrogen into the soil when they are dug in. For this reason they are often grown before brasicas, which have high nitrogen requirements. Crops also vary in the level of nutrients they require, and the depths at which they extract them. Ringing the changes allows depleted soil nutrients to be replenished naturally.

Weed control

Plants with dense foliage and sprawling habit - potatoes and pumpkins are prime examples - largely prevent weed germination while they are in the ground, whereas onions and carrots form a poor canopy, and are susceptible to weed competition. There is far less of a problem where they follow potatoes or pumpkins. Potatoes are considered a good ‘cleaning’ crop, partly on account of their dense leafy canopy, partly because the earthing-up process exposes weed seeds and soil pests to birds. (Slugs and wireworm are also removed from the soil when the potatoes are lifted.)

PLANNING

The following are the most important plant groups far rotation purposes:

Brassica/crucifer (cabbage) family: broccoli, ruds sprouts, cabbage, calabrese, cauliflower, kale, kohl rabi, oriental greens (for example Chinese broccoli, Chinese cabbage, choy sum, komatsuna, mustards, pak choi, Senposai), radish, salad mustard, salad rape, salad rocket, Texsel greens, turnips, swedes. In terms of rotation, brassicas that are in the ground for several months, such as cauliflower and winter cabbage, are far more significant than quick-maturing crops such as radish and salad rocket.
Legume (pea and bean) family: beans (including broad, French and runner), peas, leguminous green manures includng field beans, tares and clover.

Solanaceae (potato) family: aubergines, Peppers, potatoes, tomatoes.

Allum (onion) family: garlic, leeks, onions, shallots.

Umbelliferae family: carrots, celeriac, celery, parsley, parsnip.

In practice, the onion family are often grouped with the legumes, while root crops, including carrots and parsnips, are grouped with the Solanaceae (potato) family.

Many vegetables, for example courgettes, sweet corn, Swiss chard, spinach and most salads, pose little problem from the rotation point of view and can be fitted in wherever convenient, often as catch crops before or after the main plantings in each section. However, if lettuces have been attacked by root aphids, avoid planting in the same place for at least a year.

Here is a simple, three-year-cycle rotation plan:

Plot A Plot B Plot C
Year 1 Legumes Brassicas Potatoes
Year 2 Brassicas Potatoes Legumes
Year 3 Potatoes Legumes Brassicas

In this rotation the nitrogen-fixing root nodules of the legumes enrich the soil for the brassicas that follow. Members of the onion and umbelliferous families, salad plants and other vegetables are fitted in where possible.

Rotation practicalities

Flexibility of the bed system
The simple, traditional rotation plan above may be too inflexible for the modern gardener, implying as it does that one third of the garden is given over to each major group. Dividing a garden into six, seven or more narrow beds gives far more flexibility. It makes sense to treat legumes, brassicas and potatoes as the main groups (perhaps allocating more than one bed to them as needs dictate), but in addition allocating beds to alliums, umbelliferous crops and perhaps salads, and earmarking spare beds for ‘miscellaneous’ use.

For many years the bed allocation in my garden was roughly as foIlows:

Brassicas 3.5 to 4
Potatoes 4
Legumes 1.5 to 2
Alliums 2
Salads 3
Other roots 1
Miscellaneous 4

I try to leave at least a three-year gap before returning to brassicas, potatoes, legumes or alliums in any bed

Sequence

In practice, it doesn’t matter very much which group follows which. Arguments can be made in favour or against most sequences. The important factor is to ring the changes between the main rotation groups.

Time scale

The longer the rotation cycle the better: rotation over a five- or six-year cycle is highly recommended where feasible. While a three- to four-year cycle is sound practice, in reality a cycle of six or seven years is needed to rid a garden of pests like eelworm and some soil-borne diseases.

Rotation in very small gardens

In very small gardens effective rotation is notoriously difficult not least because the soil pests are to some extent mobile themselves. Moving a crop a few metres/yards in one direction will achieve little. Try to rotate but at least:

Avoid following a crop with another in the same botanical group.

Leave as long a time gap as possible before replanting with another of the same group.

Go in for diversity and intercropping, both of which slow down pest and disease attacks.

Watch for soil problems developing, and if they do, stop growing the affected vegetables.

Draw consolation from ‘the case for not rotating’, below!

The case for not rotating

As far as I know this was first expounded in the 1980s by Dr Bleasdale of the then Vegetable Research Station at Wellesbourne. It hinges on the facts that:

some soil pests and diseases are mobile, so rotation in limited areas is probably ineffective some serious pests and diseases survive many years in the soil, for example, potato cyst eelworm up to six, and clubroot and onion white rot possibly as long as twenty grouping together vegetables in the same botanical group can result in pests and diseases spreading more rapidly - a common example of this being potato blight spreading to nearby tomatoes.

A solution, especially in small gardens, is to grow vegetables in the same area until a problem arises. For example, onions can be grown on the same bed until there are signs of onion white rot developing. Then they can be moved to another bed with healthy soil. Where clubroot is a risk, a bed can be put aside for brassicas, and kept at a higher pH with more frequent liming, to counteract its impact.

Rotation summary
* Don’t lose sleep over rotation! Rotate as much as you can.
* At the very least avoid planting vegetables from the same group in the same area in consecutive seasons.
* Organize your garden in small beds to increase flexibility.

GROUPING FOR CONVENIENCE

Within the limitations of rotation, it is useful to group together vegetables that:
* mature at roughly the same time - this makes it easier to clear a patch of ground, dig it over thoroughly and possibly sow a green manure
* will be sown or planted at roughly the same time - this enables a cleared piece of ground to be put immediately to maximum use.

Typical groupings could be:
* spring-sown salad crops such as spring onions, early carrots, lettuce and cut-and-come-again salad seedlings
* crops which overwinter in the ground, such as leeks, celeriac, kohl rabi, Brussels sprouts and kales
* half-hardy summer vegetables, such as courgettes, tomatoes, sweet corn and peppers.

Herbs
It makes sense to plant frequently used culinary herbs as near to the kitchen as possible, or along the edges of beds so that they are easily accessible in bad weather.

Perennial vegetables
Perennial vegetables such as asparagus and rhubarb are best planted in beds or areas set aside for them, or at the extremities ofvegetable beds. They would not normally be included in rotation plans.

the rotation isn't a problem - i dont have much space and wanted to do second sowings rather than having ground left empty - just wanted to know if i should have sown more of the same in the summer (spuds then spuds / peas then peas) or not

the bottom line seems to be that i shouldn't do it - but i could sow next year's crop early, which is more like the 3 year rotation becoming 18 months - replace spuds now with peas and when they're done in a couple of months, plant brassicas to overwinter and they'll be ready in spring

which means that bed will have had all 3 types in 18 months instead of 3 years .... which kind of defeats the 3 year rotation plan ..... and then i'd have to leave the beds empty for 18 months??

thing is, i'm sure i've read that some people sow peas where the current peas are growing, so that the new peas replace the old .... ?? and i don't want empty ground?
i'm getting more confused now ....

"then i'd have to leave the beds empty for 18 months??"

Yeah

I would suggest you consider the change over date to be 1st July, rather than 1st Jan that way you will have to use some catch-crops, rather than moving to next-but-one rotation's crop a year early!

"some people sow peas where the current peas are growing"

Its not a problem until you get disease, or "soil sickness" because the mono-cropping has taken all of a particular mineral out of the soil. But then its hard to fix. So prevention-better-than-cure.

Don't think there is any Right / Wrong way, its a balancing act with the voice of experience (not mine I hasten to add!)

FG the way I look at it there is more than three families, so if you have 3 beds but want to grow 2 crops per year, why not look at a 6-crop cycle or something like that i.e. separate out potatoes from carrots and other roots, make alliums into a new family group by themselves, introduce cucurbits and/or sweetcorn and/or catch crops into the plan - that way you can be sowing and planting all year round, two or more crops a year from the bed, each crop from a different family, for 3 whole years. And if you get stuck for overwintering crops, stick on a green manure to keep it going.

I'm trying to work out a plan for the next year or so based on the above, with the added advantage that I haven't yet decided how many beds I will have. The current idea is 6 rotation beds plus another area for permanent and mixed planting, but if I can't come up with a rotation plan that allows me, at least in theory, to keep all areas in use at all times then I might rethink. (I'm not expecting to get everything in use all year round just yet, I just want to have a Vision For The Future...)

It's all frying my brain a bit - and on the whole I'm quite attracted by the Snadger approach to rotation (i.e. don't follow like with like, otherwise don't worry too much about it). I just want to make sure I have things growing as much of the year as I reasonably can.

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Warning: I have a dangerous tendency to act like I know what I'm talking about.

I'm afraid I may confuse things more here, but if I'm getting 2 crops out of a bed within the same year, then the 2nd crop is usually from the SAME family For instance, my onion bed remains an onion bed from Spring through to Spring - Spring sown onions are followed by over-wintering leeks! Then Peas & Beans with broad beans going in in the autumn, then brassicas, then miscellaneous, then potatoes. Empty beds are covered with manure, or compost, and covered with weed-suppressant.
Admittedly, this is only my second year, but our Allotment Secretary wins prizes in all the big shows, and reckons this is an ok way to do it.

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Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Each to there own Sarzwix!

Without trying to huff anyone or say the way I grow is the only way,I'll try and explain why I wouldn't use your method.

Say your spring planted onions had a bit of rust or an odd one had white tip or basal rot? Would you think it was a good idea to plant with leeks straight after?

If your spring sown peas and beans had a touch of chocolate spot would you think it was a good idea to plant broadies in the autumn on the same plot?

If your spring planted brassicas had a touch of clubroot, shanking or cabbage root fly would it be a good idea to plant spring cabbage in the same area?
I could go on, .......if your tatties were blighted would you plant a Christmas crop in the same spot?

The above listed problems are only the problems that are evident to the naked eye. What about nutrient depletion and trace element depletion when trying to grow a similar crop one after the other?

These in my view are the downsides of using your system but if it works for you so be it!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

I never take the huff over good advice Snadger and it's certainly worth thinking about.

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Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”