Veg Rotation

[Mal]

Well, it's mid January, I'm sure we're all working on seed lists and things, this is my 2nd full veg growing year and I'd like to share my over-ambitious plans with you all, for your comment and enjoyment. I also persuaded Mrs Mal to sit with me and work out how much of each crop we actually need on a weekly/fortnightly/monthly basis, so I'm going to try and plant a bit more accurately to our needs. I also plan to have more time for successional sowing this year (hah!) so hopefully won't go through the glut/absence cycles like we did last year!

A - Peas (late) Leeks, Onions, Garlic, Broad beans as the onions & garlic come out
B - French Beans (bush for early, climbers for maincrop), Chard (late), Spinach (late)
C - Mangetout (early), Squashes
D - Peas (Early), Calabrese, Romanesco, PSB
E - Mangetout (Maincrop), Beetroot, Carrots, Parsnips, Chard (early), Spinach (early)
F - Peas (early), Courgette, Sweetcorn, Fennel

Garden - Tomato, Chilli, Spring Onions, Salad Leaves

Cheers!

[grahamhobbs]

Mal, please explain your system a bit more, am I correct in thinking A - F are various plots or raised beds, but how do the various crops within each plot follow each other?

[Mal]

Yes, good question, it's all obvious to me, but then I've got the spreadsheet!

A-F are my 8' by 4' raised beds, 6 of them (obviously)

By and large, all of the veg named are being bunged in to the bed at more or less the same time - e.g. onions, leeks, garlic will all have to rub along together, likewise the carrots, parsnips and beetroot will be in short rows, alternating (there's no reason they have to alternate, it just suits my mind).

Exceptions to this rule are the chard/spinach, which is going in either before the root veg (e.g. while it's small) or after the beans come out; and the broad beans which is going in after the onions and garlic start coming out.

The legumes that seem to have crept in to each bed will generally go on a frame down the middle, or along the long side if it seems more appropriate for space reasons.

By the way, if you're looking at this thinking 'it'll never work' then by all means tell me, it's the product of a feverish brain thinking too hard, any gentle prodding in the right direction gratefully received!

[grahamhobbs]

Mal, no that's fine, makes sense now. Looks fine, my comments would be

Plot A
Leeks, ok to sow but perhaps you should think about transplanting to another plot, otherwise you will have to follow the garlic or onion, which are the same family
Onions come out in July, a bit late for sowing Broad beans although you might just manage one or two pods in Nov/Dec, unless you mean October sown for overwintering to following year

Plot D
This looks as if it could be too cramped. The brassicas are big plants (don't forget to net against the pigeons). But the later ones, the winter ones eg PSB, could go in plot A after the onions and garlic

Plot E
All the roots are sown early, so will you have space for the chard and spinach. Perhaps these could go in to Plot C before the squashes are planted out in June.

The problem with planting legumes in the centre of each plot is - what will you do the following year, plant in the same place?

But you have a good tasty selection, happy gardening / eating

[Millymollymandy]

I always transplant my leeks into the space where my onions grew. I know that this doesn't sound right but for 5 years it has worked very well for me, and I get decent sized leeks. So have a go and see what happens! (I first did it because there just wasn't space to put the leeks somewhere else!).

I find veg rotation a bit of a nightmare/minefield so I just have my basics which I move along a plot each year, but then there's always the extras which just don't always fit in where they should, so just get bunged wherever there is a space. It mostly works OK. Good luck!

[grahamhobbs]

I also wonder about the necessity for rotation on a small scale but then I think what's the problem in rotating things, Not to rotate risks some nasty soil borne diseases particularly onion white rot and club root in brassicas. Club root is almost impossible to eradicate and onion white rot is extremely difficult. It means our neighbour can't grow any onions on her plot. The only remedy against white rot, I know, is burning large bonfires over the affected areas.
The principal is as MMM says that you don't plant the same family in the same position each year, but move them from plot to plot and they don't return for a number of years. Traditionally legumes and potatoes were place wide apart in the rotation because legumes are limed (if your soil needs lime) and potatoes don't like lime, so you need a few years for the lime to be used up. So if these 2 are the opposite ends of the rotation then anything can go in between, the order is not specific, it depends on timing when one crop comes out and another is ready to go in or possibly the state of the soil after a particular crop eg. legumes fix nitrogen which brassicas then like.
So your rotation might be Legumes, Brassicas, Onions, Roots, Potatoes, then you would start again with Legumes. If you remember that potatoes are part of the solinacious family so this then spells LaBORS, which is how I remember it.

[Millymollymandy]

I'm not disagreeing with you any way Graham but your posting is just a reminder of how many different ways there are of doing rotation which is why I found it such a headache when researching. Cos there's those who swear blind by planting their onions etc in between their carrots etc because of carrot root fly.

Then there's people like me who started off only growing a few French beans so never had a legume plot, but now grows all sorts of beans and I'm planning on even more - I want to try different things! So it kind of mucks it all up a bit.

Then of course there's the years when you can only get 6 sweetcorn to germinate and the years when you've got all 30 germinated so there's no room in the plot that used to contain sweetcorn PLUS a load of other things.

So my plots are a bit of a mishmash of mixtures of different families (i.e. this year my winter brassicas which should have been in the sweetcorn plot are now in what was last year's potato plot as I had far more sweetcorn than I was expecting).

Still I just remember what went where last year and will move them all along one this year.

[Mal]

Thanks for your help, I've read a few threads about whether rotation is worth the difficulties, and I'm sure I'll end up winging it anyway, but my memory is just not that good, especially over multiple years, so I'm putting it all in to a spreadsheet anyway - what goes where, when, what it does the next year, what varieties I need etc.

I've cut down on the legumes - I think I'd just gone a bit mad anyway, so I'm down to one lot of peas, beans and mangetout - I was kind of aiming for length of supply but I think being sensible I should just try to succession sow to push the season, rather than needing a full row of earlies or whatever.

I moved the spinach and chard to preceed the squash (for the earlies) and follow the courgette/sweetcorn (for the late) - don't know if it'll work that late but worth a shot!

How big do brassica plants get? I only want about 1 head a week over the season, so that's about... hmm, 16 heads of broccoli/romanesco and then 'some' PSB because I don't really know how that comes. Let's say 10, because I like the number. 26 plants in total. Let me think, my plot is 8' by 4' which is [does maths in head... slowly... ] about 32 square foot, so I can give each one about... 1 square foot. And they need... [consults oracles ] about 2 square foot. Hmm. Okay, more thought needed there.

I'm now playing about with the order as well to see if I can follow the legumes with the brassicas and still find somewhere for the late leeks that ends them up in the bed which is going to become the onions bed so that the soil there gets a decent rest before the onions come back again. Phew, I see what you mean, MMM.

[Mal]

Which ends me up here (with the varieties I'm looking at - mostly from Realseeds and Marshalls to make up the gap)

A
Onions - Hyred
Garlic - Solent White
Leeks Early - 'Jaune de Poitou'
[as they come out, followed by]
Broad Beans - Late - Aquadulce?

B (Manure, and then...)
Swiss Chard - Early - Bright Lights
Spinach - Early - ?
[then taken out to make way for]
Squash - Hunter Butternut
Squash - Burgess Vine Buttercup
Leeks Late - 'Meziers' [as squash comes out]

C
Calabrese - Green heading broccoli
Romanesco - Ottobrino
PSB - Extra Early Rudolph
green manure

D
Beans - Climbers - maincrop - Trail of Tears [down the middle]
Beans - Bush - early - Aquilon
PSB - Earlier PSB [as beans come out]

E
Mangetout - Maincrop - Golden Sweet [down the middle]
Beetroot - Sanguina
Carrots - Jaune Obtuse de Doubs
Parsnips - Tender & True (continuing to March(ish))

F
Peas - Maincrop - Hurst Greenshaft [on one side]
Courgette - Verde di Milano
Sweetcorn - Double Standard
Fennel - Mantovano [not sure about this]
Swiss Chard - Late - Bright Lights [if not too late]
Spinach - Late - ?
green manure

[grahamhobbs]

Mal your plans are coming on really well, some interesting varieties I've never tried as well, will be good to see how they do.

Plot A yes Aquadulce for overwintering

Plot B I think the squash will have to be planted between the swiss chard and spinach, squash normally get planted out in June whilst the chard should last until July before going to seed - so harvest them with making gaps for the squash in mind. Also the squash will end towards the beginning of October, this could be a bit late for transplanting leeks (they should be pretty big by then) but perhaps you could get away with planting them out amoungst the squash in early September.

Plot C I still think this is going to be a squeeze, I am not familiar with the particular varieties but romanesco and the PSB are normally big plants, ideally taking up 1sqm each, remember all are also very hungry plants, so unless they are particularly small they will be squashed and won't perform well. I have similar width beds and last year tried growing a centre row of romanesco with cabbages and calabrese down either the side, it was too cramped and everything suffered. Perhaps you can get 2 romanesco, 2 PSB and 3 calabrese on your plot

Putting things on a spreadsheet is a great idea, I do a 5 year rotation so I do a bar chart calender over 5 years, month by month, where each year corresponds to what is growing in the 5 beds ( I have 30 beds, so actually I have 6 such calenders) but you can do one for 6 years to correspond to your 6 beds.

[Millymollymandy]

I draw my plot on an A4 size piece of paper and mark in what is going where each year. It helps me to visualise the space. Looking at a list like yours Mal just makes my head go

[indy]

Glad I'm not the only one MMM looks wonderful. Wish I could be that organised but I tend to draw mine out too

[prison break fan]

Where are the potatoes going? pbf.

[Mal]

Maybe it's a geek thing - excel is first thing I think of for things like this!

Graham - thanks for all the advice, looks like it'll be very few brassicas for me, but that's fine - it's my first year trying them so I don't mind, it's all experimental really isn't it? I'll stick to that sort of quantity and see how it goes. I guess my other Leeks option is to have them in A which then becomes F... actually that works pretty well because they can come out as the courgettes go in next year...

pbf - The potatoes are out. I tried to fit them in, but couldn't find the space, even for super-earlies, so they made the ultimate sacrifice and sit in a 'not yet' box on my spreadsheet. To be honest, I tried them last year and couldn't even get them to chit so I thought perhaps I'd leave them out!

Cheers everyone!

[grahamhobbs]

Mal, went to my allotment this morning and paced out 8'. You might manage 2PSB, 1 Romanesco and 4 calabrese. If you chose a late PSB, one for late winter/early spring instead of one at basically the same time as the Romanesco, then you might squeeze 2PSB, 2 Romanesco and 5 calabrese.

Remember Romanesco is a big one-off plant, whereas the calabrese might give spears for up to 6 months (my Sakura after heading up in June, produced spears from late July until xmas) and PSB should do the same for a month or two. Mind you, who can resist the pleasure of harvesting a big lime green Romanesco with all its spirals!