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Crop Rotation Question

 
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Hello, new to gardening. Please let me know what you think would be a better crop rotation and why.


cover crop, Zucchini carrots and onions, green beans, tomato and peppers

cover crop, tomatoes and peppers, green beans, tomato and peppers


Does it matter if I have the tomatoes and peppers follow a cover crop or the green beans crop?  We will be harvesting the green beans not sure if that makes a large difference or not.


Also my zucchini crop will be the main crop and I will be planting carrots and onions and shallots with it, or zucchini and small sugar baby watermelons.  Any thoughts on which combination is better.  

FYI the exterior of my garden and a some dedicated rows in my garden will have Borage, Beebalm, and cardinal basil.  The exterior corners and middle will have some lemonbalm.

I am also planning on doing no till in the future and thinking about doing about 1 foot rows of a no-till winter kill cover crop between rows at the end of the growing season, thoughts?
 
steward
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I hope that by bumping your topic with this information there might be more discussions.

There may not be a lot of discussion on crop rotation because there is more talk about planting perennial vegetables and planting polycultures.

I am a believer in practicing methods for soil health so I feel crop rotation of annual plants might be necessary depending on the plants.

Maybe some plants use more of the nutrients than others making it a necessity to rotate to something else the next years.

It seems that the permaculture answer to this is to plant perennials.

Though promoting perennials this article says it is a 4-year plan.

 

common collection for us to consider now for a basic four-year rotation plan.

   • Nightshades (Solanaceae): potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant

   • Cruciferous (Brassicaceae): kale, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard

   • Legumes (Fabaceae): green beans, garden peas, snow peas, kidney beans, lentils

   • Roots (Amaryllidaceae): onions, leeks, garlic, (Apiaceae): beets, parsnips, celery, carrots and (Chenapodiaceae): beets



https://www.permaculturenews.org/2016/11/18/rotate-annual-crops/

Bonnie Plants offers an easy plan using 4 crops that are rotated every planting:

 

One approach to crop rotation is to divide your plants into these four basic groups: legumes, root crops, fruit crops, and leaf crops. Imagine your garden separated into four areas, as shown in the chart at the top of the page. Each successive year, you would move each group one spot clockwise. So, for example, you would plant your legumes in Area 1 one year, then the next year you’d move them to Area 2 while the leaf crops from Area 4 moved into now-vacant Area 1—and so on.



https://bonnieplants.com/the-bonnie-blog/crop-rotation-made-easy/

It makes sense to me that different plants use different nutrients so rotating plants every year seems logical.
 
gardener
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Hi Allen,
I'm actually going to take a step back and ask a different question. Why would we want to do crop rotation at all? The two problem reasons that I know of, to do crop rotation is to avoid diseases and to deal with nutrient deficiencies. And those aren't that big of a deal.

In the first case, with diseases, if you don't have a disease in a certain spot, then there is no need to rotate. If there is a disease in a spot, at a home garden scale, moving it over 5 feet may not be effective enough.

As for nutrient deficiencies, these should not be a big deal if one is gardening in an organic manner to feed the soil. You will be increasing microbiology and adding things like compost, which will even out the availability of the nutrients.

Now for there are some beneficial reasons like loosening soil and increasing nitrogen. If you simply cut off the tops of legumes, the nitrogen around their roots will become available for the next plants. If you plant certain root crops they can loosen the soil for the next crop. There is also benefits to inter-planting crops to attract beneficial bugs and confuse the bad bugs.

That is the long way of saying that I do it in my garden, and I believe it to be beneficial, but both the problems and the benefits are much less on a small scale than they are on a large scale.

I wish you the best of luck with gardening.
 
Allen Lemrow
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Thank you for the reply. I was under the impression that crop rotation was necessary. It will be a home garden roughly 30x30 or 36x24 I am trying to grow as organic as possible. Was able to raise about 30 strawberry plants last year in raises beds complety organic except one application of miracle grow at first planting and one dose of neem oil late in season.

. I did have a plan of using a cover crop to help loosen soil, its rather compacted around here.  I will be planting cardinal basil, lemon balm and marigold throughout to help keep pests down. Also some borage and maybe some sunflowers.  I planned on cover cropping one full bed, and  covercrop between rows late in season just to build some soil.  I was going to plant half of each crop with a slow release organic fert like dr earth and and the other half with a more often but low dose powdered into water feeding schedule to see if there was much difference for me.   If the easiest plan of action with roughly the same outcome is to not rotate then i may not as it will save me some needed yard space due to not needing a cover crop bed.  I never really thought about the small scale not effecting crop rotation as much.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Allen,
I'm actually going to take a step back and ask a different question. Why would we want to do crop rotation at all? The two problem reasons that I know of, to do crop rotation is to avoid diseases and to deal with nutrient deficiencies. And those aren't that big of a deal.

In the first case, with diseases, if you don't have a disease in a certain spot, then there is no need to rotate. If there is a disease in a spot, at a home garden scale, moving it over 5 feet may not be effective enough.

As for nutrient deficiencies, these should not be a big deal if one is gardening in an organic manner to feed the soil. You will be increasing microbiology and adding things like compost, which will even out the availability of the nutrients.

Now for there are some beneficial reasons like loosening soil and increasing nitrogen. If you simply cut off the tops of legumes, the nitrogen around their roots will become available for the next plants. If you plant certain root crops they can loosen the soil for the next crop. There is also benefits to inter-planting crops to attract beneficial bugs and confuse the bad bugs.

That is the long way of saying that I do it in my garden, and I believe it to be beneficial, but both the problems and the benefits are much less on a small scale than they are on a large scale.

I wish you the best of luck with gardening.

 
Allen Lemrow
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Hey thank you, i am actually also going to attempt a small food forest or fruit tree guild also mainly with perennials.  I have (2)4 in 1 apple trees, looking for a pendragon and maybe 2 cold hardy pomegranates.  I will be planting saskatoon berry, goumi berry, goose berry, asparagus,   garlic chives and wild strawberry there.  Along with some bee balm, lemonbalm, maybe lupine. Also prolly some hostas or other shade tolerante plants. And li will liekly also include a small annual section, this will mainly be just more legumes that i can easily access and will fix nitrogen. Its going to be busy year.

Anne Miller wrote:I hope that by bumping your topic with this information there might be more discussions.

There may not be a lot of discussion on crop rotation because there is more talk about planting perennial vegetables and planting polycultures.

I am a believer in practicing methods for soil health so I feel crop rotation of annual plants might be necessary depending on the plants.

Maybe some plants use more of the nutrients than others making it a necessity to rotate to something else the next years.

It seems that the permaculture answer to this is to plant perennials.

Though promoting perennials this article says it is a 4-year plan.

 

common collection for us to consider now for a basic four-year rotation plan.

   • Nightshades (Solanaceae): potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant

   • Cruciferous (Brassicaceae): kale, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard

   • Legumes (Fabaceae): green beans, garden peas, snow peas, kidney beans, lentils

   • Roots (Amaryllidaceae): onions, leeks, garlic, (Apiaceae): beets, parsnips, celery, carrots and (Chenapodiaceae): beets



https://www.permaculturenews.org/2016/11/18/rotate-annual-crops/

Bonnie Plants offers an easy plan using 4 crops that are rotated every planting:

 

One approach to crop rotation is to divide your plants into these four basic groups: legumes, root crops, fruit crops, and leaf crops. Imagine your garden separated into four areas, as shown in the chart at the top of the page. Each successive year, you would move each group one spot clockwise. So, for example, you would plant your legumes in Area 1 one year, then the next year you’d move them to Area 2 while the leaf crops from Area 4 moved into now-vacant Area 1—and so on.



https://bonnieplants.com/the-bonnie-blog/crop-rotation-made-easy/

It makes sense to me that different plants use different nutrients so rotating plants every year seems logical.

 
gardener
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I used to worry about crop rotation. I have raised beds and some have trellis and some don't. This made it very hard.  What I learned is crop rotation is primarily for large scale farms, especially non organic.
I have been organic gardening for several years. I add organic supplements such as blood meal, bone meal, azamite,  green sand, biolive, between plantings.  I top it off with compost.  I also over plant a diverse mix of veggies, herbs, and flowers.  This method has worked great for me. Beyond this I really don't have to do anything else besides water, and some general garden maintenance. ( Dead heading, harvest, prune) Maybe once in a while use a compost tea if something isn't performing the way I like.  I have great harvest, very little pest, and disease problems.
I'm not saying this is the perfect system, that it will work for everyone, or that I never have things fail. Because we all do. Last year I had constant trouble with a cherry tomato. Every other year they were almost a weed. You just never know. But on a whole this works well for me.
Good luck.
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In my experience, plant rotation is important in an organic home garden if you plant annual vegetables.
The plants don't grow that well if you grow them in the same spot two two years in a row, even if you don't have diseases.
I minimize the ammount of ammendments that I would have to bring in from outside though.
 
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So the answer to your original question: I dint know 🤔

I cover crop all the time, between my edibles, mostly with forage peas, which can be bought in fall at your local feed store, in 50lb bags, and in canada no tax, i didn't see your location, and if lucky some stores may still have some.

I also use red clover, building more of that every year, collecting seed heads on walks as well.

I also use mustard seed from my bulk foods store.

I leave no ground uncovered.

There is a thread on bulk wild strawberries.  I also use them extensively.

So far I haven't had luck with goumi unfortunately.

For compacted soil, Jerusalem artichokes do a fabulous job, but you may be digging them up forever after. I don't mind though: they make great "green manure" (compost) and are a good indicator plant for powdery mildew.

All the best! Sorry I couldn't help more: I do switch around plants, but rotate beds every 2-3 years, in beds of biennials: leave some to go to seed and volunteer the following year.

My plants are not in rows at all: I don't seed start and I try to fall plant and essentially foster a pseudo volunteer planting approach: the best advice I ever got from a métis friend: "leave those plants where God put them!!"
 
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I'm going to attempt a comprehensive answer even though you don't say where you are--could be important--or what cover crop you have in mind.
I am in West Virginia, zone 6. I have two gardens with permanent beds, all of them 12 feet long and varying between 2 and 4 1/2 feet wide. I pooh pooh the "grow perennials" suggestion--there are few perennial vegetables (unless maybe you live in California--pretty mu ch all fruits are perennial, but that doesn't help with vegetables.
Here, onions come out about July 1st so it works to plant them around the edges of vine  crops like summer squash or melons. But my carrots need at least another month and would be drowning under the vines. Actually, I plant my carrots in two beds in rows across the bed, alternating with onions--the onions go in in March, and are up marking the rows when I plant carrots in April. I once read this allows each to repel the fly that bothers the others--I don't know but it seemed I got better crops after I started doing this so I still do. But we eat a lot of onions so I also plant a solid bed of onions, and usually a few tucked into the corners of beds with slow crops. Sometimes I plant garlic in the fall in a grid pattern: a double row down the middle of the bed, then short rows across the bed, so that in the spring I can put tomatoes, peppers or sweet potatoes in the spaces between, and the garlic or onions come out just when the rampant crops needs the space.
I believe in crop rotation unless your garden is so tiny it makes no difference--but the permanent bed system makes it more meaningful. And I have three garden spaces a  couple of hundred feet apart. This, by the way, is useful for two reasons--one is effective rotation of disease-prone crops (tomatoes and peppers for me, mainly, tho I have had problems with cercospora on chard and feathery mosaic disease on sweet potatoes. The only insect I have significant trouble with is the two kinds of worms on brassicas, which show up every year, repeatedly. The best solutions there are tulle fabric (netting) over the crop if you can find a frame work big enough, and Bt--bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring bacteria that kills soft-bodied bugs. I have enough weeds, and I allow several wild, ornamental plants to grow in my garden--mullein, butterfly weed, yarrow--that the predator bugs and pollinators are content and effective.
One issue with cover crops is that they are mostly used over winter but you seem to be saying you'll grow them NOW. You also mentioned winterkilled crops; living roots in the soil all winter is better for the soil health, but a winterkilled type makes sense for a spot you pan to put an early crop, which wouldn't get any spring growth before you turn it under and plant. Daikon radishes are good to plant once in each area, because they drill down into the subsoil, then die around 15 or 20 degrees, leaving a bit of organic matter extending into the subsoil. Especially good for subsoil.
I mostly use hairy vetch and winter peas in my main gardens, because they're easy to rip out in spring. Rye and wheat do a better job of building biomass in the soil, but if you dig them out in spring, it's hassle to try to shake the dirt out of the roots, especially if you have clay soil like I do. However, if you wait until they're shedding pollen, about the start of June here, you can cut them and almost all will die and you can plant a couple weeks later. So I generally have a bed or two in one of those, with plans for a late crop--some kind of beans, or peanuts, a fast melon...to follow.
One of my gardens is left flat, and tilled once or twice a year. That's where I grow corn and sorghum. I try to get rye and vetch in there in fall, before the corn/sorghum is harvested so it gets a decent start--then I don't have to till in fall.
I've never used  commercial fertilizer--my clay soil is often a pain to work with, but it's rich in nutrients, deficient only in sulfur. I try to put an inch of some organic matter everywhere every year--compost, leafmold, manure, maybe woodrot; and use mulch, mostly hay, almost everywhere.
 
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Allen Lemrow,
Be careful where you plant sunflowers. They can be allelopathic to some garden plants.
 
Allen Lemrow
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Wowie so much info here. thank you everyone for your information and example sharing.

FYI i am in zone 6A Western Maryland Mountains, about 2800ft elevation.  
 
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But also...

Ala "chop and drop" and other natural ways to keep the soil healthy and full of the nutrients and elements necessary so support plant health, what are some natural soil amendments and maybe some perennial plants that don't mind supporting annuals mixed in next to them?

j
 
Mary Cook
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Yes, sunflowers can be allelopathic, so can fennel and also rye, so after killing the rye, when used as a cover crop, you're supposed to wait three weeks to plant small seeds--but you can transplant bigger plants in right away, especially if you planted the rye in rows so you don't have to remove the dying plants to put their successors in. I've read that some tomato growers like to do this as the allelopathic quality of the rye gives the tomatoes a head start on weeds.
Jim, soil amendments depend on what you can get your hands on, and your soil's needs. For example, my soil is clay, and I add both organic matter and sand. Sand is controversial--there's a whole thread here about that--but it works for me. Compost is always good. In addition to the two bins above my garden, and one pile at the top of each other garden, I have several piles of half rotted logs, branches etc in the woods, which take longer to compost but eventually do--and I dump urine on these piles in a rotating sequence (most of the nitrogen and phosphorus we void is in the urine, and it's sterile, so this is great for kickstarting a slow  compost). We also have humanure but that goes on the fruit trees, and if there's any left, the flowerbed.
I also use a fair amount of leafmold. I gather leaves from most of our mile-long lane in the fall, shred them, and fill three wire bins. Shredded leaves take a year to turn into leafmold; unshredded leaves take two years. I keep a map where I mark what crops I have in each bed, and use colored pencils to mark amendments--so I determined that if anything, the crops like leafmold even better than compost.
Manure is good, but if you use it excessively, can lead to very high phosphorus. Rabbit, sheep, goat and alpaca manure are richer than cow, horse or chicken manure, yet can be used sooner. The latter should compost six months before use.
Other amendments depend on what's available to you, If you can get a load of wood chips, they make a lovely mulch after a couple of years of composting. If there is crop residue in your area, or from some kin d of organic processing like spent hops and barley from beermaking, or spent coffee grounds from a cafe, those are good but may have pesticide residues if the crop was not organic. There are questions about the sustainability of peat, but peat moss is the best way to reduce the pH of your soil, for blueberries or if your soil is alkaline naturally (or you can scatter sulfur or gypsum). If your soil is too acidic, lime or wood ashes will raise it, and tend to loosen clay soil as well.
 
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We let our tomatoes come back from seed in the same spot year after year. If we have disease we pull and burn the plants before they can drop fruit. As with cover crops , I have learned that bracassia can deter mycorrhiza growth in the soil. Even after they have been pulled out. I love southern peas and fodder peas for cover crops. I am working on building a fungal soil. Now i am putting the radishes and kale in their own space to reseed and grow.
 
Mary Cook
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Well Sean, must be nice to have a plan for IF you get disease in your tomatoes, I get it every year, for which reason I don't save seed from tomatoes. Mostly early blight and sometimes late blight. I've learned how to get enough tomatoes for the 50 quarts of tomato sauce I like to can each year--grow mostly resistant varieties and several kinds so I get plenty of fruit for a month or two, and then dwindling amounts for salsa. Tomato disease is my most intractable gardening problem (unless it's the squirrels stealing my tree fruit). Some years I get disease in my peppers too.
 
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