Crop rotation

[Cloud]

How imporant is crop rotation in a small garden?

We are trying to avoid planting beans where beans have been, but have so many plants we're rapidly running out of space. We planted some by firs, which I now understand is not ideal, but all we now have left for runners is where the broad beans were last year.

Is crop rotation an ideal - or a must do at all costs?

[Cassiepod]

Hi Cloud, as I understand it's an ideal. I spent hours tearing my hair out trying to work out a crop rotation that suited my odd shaped beds and my desire to have different quantities of stuff....ie not an equal area of each type of crop . I came up with a wonky rotation that lasts until 2018 and then restarts Putting that by the by, I think the main thing is brassicas which can be badly affected by soil borne disease with potatoes being the next most susceptible to soil disease. From my dad, the main thing is that brassicas are alway s on a different bit each year everything else should be ok...but he and I are very much of the plonk it in and see what happens school of gardening than the regimented !

Hope that helps... if you want to see the wonky rotation would happily email it over (excel file)! probably wouldn't make any sense though!

[Millymollymandy]

If you have nowhere to put your runners except that space then put them in! We all have that kind of problem as we (OK, I ) don't grow the same crops every year or the same amount of crops and there's always something that has to just be bunged in somewhere where there's room! But overall it is a good thing to try to rotate crops as much as possible because of the risk of diseases but text books and real life are quite different stories sometimes.

[Cloud]

That encouraging :D We did start with a plan, honest, but we planted far too much in the greenhouse and window ledges. We never expected every thing to germinate, and we rather over did the potatoes. It is our first year and already the plan's evolved in to make-it-up-as-you-go-along with a large helping of squeeze-it-in.

This is the little patch by the greenhouse where we have new Rhubarb, but we've now added nasturtiums along the fence one side (there's shallots the other side), The white tags mark two rows of red onions, and just out of shot, this side of the yellow flowers (are they poppies?) are several short rows of beetroot.


This was the only photo at hand but the rest of the garden is becoming as haphazard. We have cabbages in the borders - which bless there socks are rowing better than the ones in the veg patch - and we dug out 6 x 4 patch of the lawn and it now has potatoes, beans, cabbages, marigolds, courgettes, and more potatoes. In another border we have two rows of kale, sunchokes, more cabbages and marigolds (although the marigolds got frosted and then eaten).

We're taking notes (must take more photos), but I fear that not only will we forget where everything went this year when we start planting next, but that well find we just wont be able to rotate simply because the spaces and shapes that fit for one veg can't work for another.

@Cassiepod - we may very well need our own wonky rotation plan. I guess it's better we try to derive our own rather than try to copy someones else plan, but any hint how you tackled it would be handy, so yes please for the excel file - I don't have Excel, but I think Open Office reads most things. My email is cloudy.thoughts at gmail dot com

[Green Aura]

I like haphazard! I think it's good for the garden and your crops. I agree with cassiepod about the brassicas. Just try to move them each year so as not to attract clubroot - it's the one thing best not tested - if you get clubroot you can't grow brassicas in that area for 5 years and/or have to use really noxious chemicals.

Other things about rotation make a lot of sense too - grow your brassicas where you had beans last year - they're hungry and like the nitrogen left by the legume nodules and stuff like that. But if you can't it's not a major disaster.

We only grow spuds in sacks anyway so shifting them isn't an issue.

[Annpan]

Through what I have learned from others more knowledgable than myself.... on a small scale polyculture system crop rotation isn't that important. It is another one of those things that the victorian believed in (planting in long rows, planting one crop in each section, weeds are all bad, etc) If you keep everything mixed up you probably will never have a problem, move stuff about for sure, but I don't think you need to be text-book about it.

Those flowers you have are yellow poppies I think... they are very pretty and seem to seed themselves, my FIL had some growing inbetween his patio slabs - till he soaked them with round-up

[kompost krazy]

I think crop rotation is necessary to avoid problems, but you don't have to follow a specific plan too precisely: as long as everything moves around from time to time, you can stick anything in wherever there's a space. I am, I admit, planning to grow my cucurbits (Courgettes, Marrows, Squashes, pumpkins, etc) in the same place every year, but they're on a compost trench which gets emptied and re-filled each year, so the growing medium is rotating under them, instead of them rotating.

[Odsox]

agree with cassiepod about the brassicas. Just try to move them each year so as not to attract clubroot - it's the one thing best not tested - if you get clubroot you can't grow brassicas in that area for 5 years and/or have to use really noxious chemicals.

I think you may be a tad over optimistic with your timing Maggie, I think clubroot can stay in the soil for 15 - 20 years ... or in other words, pretty much forever.
Rotating brassicas is certainly a good idea but for clubroot prevention it is far more important to raise your own plants from seed, as most infestations are caused by buying (or being given) young plants with infected soil attached to the roots.

[Mrs Moustoir]

Oh no - just been given a tray of cabbage plants by a friend! Should I be worried? Said friend grows all her plants on in multipurpose compost rather than soil...

[oldfella]

Did my crop rotation yesterday dug up the spuds and put them where the peas had been and the onions I put where where the courgettes had been, which are now where my strawberries were until I put them where the OH had planted Her Dahlias, but I think I might have a lot of watering to do as they look rather droopy at the moment, so I wonder if I did my rotation at the right time in the season.

[Odsox]

Oh no - just been given a tray of cabbage plants by a friend! Should I be worried? Said friend grows all her plants on in multipurpose compost rather than soil...

If they were sown and grown on in sterilised compost they should be just fine.
It's plants grown in garden soil from someone you don't really know (like from a market) that you should be wary of.