Crop Rotation and Planting in same bed same year??

[Pugs]

Can I ask for advice regarding Crop Rotation, and what to plant next in the same year. I got my plot late last year, and Ive manage to put down 8 raised beds. The idea I had was 4 year crop rotation, 2 beds legumes, 2 brassicas, 2 roots/onions, 2 potato/fruiting veg

The question/confusion comes around planting in the same bed in the same year. Probably best example is I have filled a bed with first earlies, which if I have done my homework right should take 10 ish weeks. Once harvested, I have been given mixed advice. I have been told both stick to the same family, like corn, squash/more spuds for xmas,; and told this is a bad idea for disease, so grow something like leeks... but if i do how do I stick to 4yr crop rotation, because if i followed with leeks the question becomes am I changing the family mid year and how does that effect the rotation plan. Same with other quicker growing veg


Not sure if I am overthinking

[JoaoLeaftide]

After first earlies come out you've still got plenty of season left. That bed would be in your potato/fruiting veg rotation, so you could follow with a quick brassica like kale or PSB, or even a fast salad crop. The rotation rules are more about not following the same family in the same spot year after year, so as long as you're not putting more potatoes or tomatoes in there you're fine.

[ChingfordHarry]

As I understand it, there are two main reasons for rotating beds.

One is to reduce build-up of disease associated with a particular plant family - two or three years is often enough to reduce pathogen levels to negligible (but there are things like white rot in alliums and club root in brassicas which can stay around much, much longer).

The other is that different plant families tend to take out different spectra of nutrients, so you can keep the bed more balanced nutritionally. Of course, some families introduce nutrients (e.g. legumes and nitrogen).

So it's more being "sensible" (take that how you will!) rather than having to follow a strict regime. A strict rotation is just easier to remember (A follows B follows C etc...).

[ChingfordHarry]

Ah - one other thing. I notice you have

...2 brassicas, 2 roots/onions...

- bear in mind that turnips are both roots and brassicas - I would tend to include them in brassicas rather than roots in a rotation

[Jungle Jane]

I grow potatoes in containers & when I harvest the first couple of bags I always plant a tomato plant in the used compost with a marigold to stop whitefly. As it’s in the same year & no disease same family is good but the following year I don’t use the potato/tomato compost for any of the nightshade family. June/July is too early for blight,it’s never affected my potatoes. If you had any plant disease the following crop must not be susceptible to it. It gets easier when you have experienced it more, I don’t think corn & squash are in the same family as potatoes,potatoes are nightshades with tomatoes,peppers & aubergine.

[Jungle Jane]

Some people think they have potato blight when it’s just natural dieback of the potatoes becoming ready to harvest,it can be hard to tell,if unsure I wouldn’t put tomatoes in after the potatoes.

[Pugs]

Thank you all

[Penellype]

Quite often crop rotation in a small(ish) plot is virtually impossible once you take into account the layout of the plot, where the most sun is, 2 crops in a season etc. Crop rotation is really designed around large monocultures rather than gardens and allotments, so as long as you avoid replanting the same family where there has been a pest or disease, and give the soil a year or 2 rest from the same thing every so often, you are not going to need to worry too much.

Plant families can be confusing. The following groupings might help:

Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines (solanacae/nightshades)
Peas, beans, peanuts, clover, vetch (legumes)
Courgettes, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons (curcubits)
Carrots, parsnips, celery, celeriac, parsley, florence fennel and several other herbs such as chervil and dill (umbelliferae)
Onions, leeks, garlic, chives (alliums)
Cabbages, sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, mustard and oriental leaves, kohlrabi, turnips, swedes, radishes and several weeds (cruciferae/brassicas)
Beetroot, spinach, chard, quinoa (amaranthus)
Lettuce, chicory, endives, salsify, artichokes, sunflowers, dandelions (asteracea/daisies)
Sweetcorn, wheat, oats, rye (graminae/grass)
Sweet potato (convolvulus)
Okra, cotton (mallow)
There are many other families of plants, some of which are represented by edibles such as basil, nasturtiums, coriander and borage, not to mention perennials such as thyme, sage, bay, asparagus and almost all fruit.

You can immediately see from this that categories such as "roots" or "herbs" are fairly useless when planning crop rotation!

[Penellype]

I should perhaps also add that although many pests and diseases are specific to certain plant families, others are not, for example in my garden I have tortrix moth, whose caterpillars seem to eat anything from strawberries and lemons (yes, the fruit), to tomatoes, carrot foliage and Japanese maple leaves!

[Andraste]

My attitude to crop rotation has definitely become more flexible over time - in the early years I got a bit obsessed with it

I try to use a 3 year rotation as that fits best with the layout of 3 main annual beds we have on our 1/2 plot: Potatoes - Beans/Onions/Roots - Brassicas. Then shift everything over 1 bed to the left each year.

I do my best to put root veg wherever the spuds were the year before as we have clay soil & the spuds break it up nicely. I also put my hungriest brassicas wherever the beans were the previous year (although the jury's always out on whether the nitrogen benefit from legume roots is a real thing).

However, I've found we never fill a whole bed with potatoes, don't grow onions or many roots & never have enough room for how many brassicas we enjoy eating - so where the top end of the bed might have spuds in, the bottom third might have brassicas.

I try to avoid putting anything in the same place 2 years running but we have 1 bed which is wetter than the others & after a disaster year for spuds in there, I'll never grow spuds there again. So, if spuds were in the top end of bed 2 one year, they move to the top of bed 3 the next - the year after they go back into bed 2 but in the bottom end.

After all that rambling my advice is to make sure you write down where you plant what each year then do your best to rotate in the groups but don't worry too much if you can't stick to it religiously. If something doesn't grow well in a certain spot then there's no point setting yourself up to fail.

In the winter, I tend to get pencil to paper as a visual plan helps me - I draw a rough sketch of where each crop will go & note when they will come out of the ground so I can see where there will be room for any subsequent planting in the same year. Some things seem to naturally follow & if I can fit things into the 'rotation' rules then I do, but I don't worry if I can't.

The main issues I've observed (fortunately not on my plot) have been with onions as if you get white rot in an area you can never grow them there again & brassicas with club root (you can remedy that with soil testing & lime) so those are the ones I'd be most mindful of shuffling about the plot. Potato blight is airborne - it can't survive long in the ground - I believe it can over-winter in infected spuds left behind in the ground but I'm not sure on how likely that is to infect new plantings so I'd avoid spuds in the same place if you do experience blight.

[Peanut]

And just to add to the confusion, as a no dig gardener I don't do crop rotation

[Andraste]

I aspire to become fully 'no dig' - we're more 'dig if you have to but not if you can avoid it' I didn't realise 'no dig' also meant 'no need for rotation though'

[Penellype]

I aspire to become fully 'no dig' - we're more 'dig if you have to but not if you can avoid it' I didn't realise 'no dig' also meant 'no need for rotation though'

I've tried to be no dig, but its impossible when you have horsetail

[Peanut]

I've tried to be no dig, but its impossible when you have horsetail

My garden is full of it! I just spend my life nipping off the tops.

[ChingfordHarry]

For those of a historical bent, Turnip Townsend popularised crop rotation in agriculture.