Skip to main content

Rotate Your Home Garden

Have you ever known a gardener that just never seems to have a successful crop of anything? Ask them what they plant and where- there’s a good chance they plant the same thing in the same place, over and over.
They’re not bad gardeners- they’re just missing a step. Suggest they begin to rotate crops from one are to the next, and with a little work, they’ll enjoy harvesting their own food.

Why Rotate Crops in a Home Garden?

Bugs get used to the same crops in the same place. You might as well set plates out when you plant the same thing in the same spot- or in the same container, for that matter.

Diseases that affect one plant will often affect plants in the same botanical family, but not in another. Instead of buying expensive “soil fixers” and pesticides, crop rotation cuts down on disease and pests.

The same pest that adores your tomatoes could starve when faced with corn or another vegetable. That’s worth the effort.

How Proper Crop Rotation is Accomplished

Begin on paper while winter is still blowing outside. This also works throughout the year when each crop is harvested for spring, summer and fall.

Make a list of what you grow, and group those vegetables into their respective families. Measure your garden plot(s), and map them out on the paper.

Beside each plant, label them as spring, summer, fall or winter vegetables. This allows rotation throughout the year and still growing varieties in keeping with the seasons.

What Follows What?

Here are the groups and some examples for each:

A) Greens, grown for their edible leaves

  • Kale,
  • Swiss Chard,
  • Spinach,
  • Broccoli,
  • Cabbage,
  • Salad Greens

B) Fruiting plants, with crops you pick off the plant

  • Tomatoes,
  • Potatoes,
  • Corn,
  • Peppers,
  • Eggplant,
  • Squash,
  • Cucumbers

Potatoes are included in this group because they are in the Nightshade family with tomatoes, even though the fruit is underground.

C) Roots

  • Carrots,
  • Onions,
  • Salsify,
  • Turnips,
  • Beets

D) Legumes that feed and enhance the soil

  • Beans,
  • Peas,
  • Alfalfa,
  • Peanuts,
  • and others.

Make the Rotation Plan

Label each area of your garden. For this example, I’ll use a typical four foot wide by eight foot long raised garden bed. Using string, I’ll separate it into four areas, each two feet wide.

The first area gets planted with group A plants, the second, with group B, and so on. The varieties will match the growing season and the time of year. Bush plants are planted with bush plants, vines with vines, and so forth.

In the second four foot by eight foot bed, the first area gets planted with group B plants, then C, followed by D, and finally by group A plants.

Next season or next year, each bed moves over one space.

Each bed is appropriately fertilized and weeded, any dead or broken off leaves are picked up and taken to the compost pile. Any diseases are dealt with rapidly, and the diseased plants are tossed into the general trash, not in the compost.

After a bed is harvested, fresh compost and other amendments are added before new plants are inserted.

Some gardeners allow beds to “sit fallow”- that is, to rest with nothing grown in them. With the addition of compost and appropriate amendments, this isn’t really necessary.

Right now, I have bunching onions that are almost 2 feet tall and nearly an inch wide. This really does work- the original garden bed was heavy clay the color and density of concrete.

Use this method for container vegetables as well.

You’ll enjoy crops all year long in your healthy and productive garden beds.

 

The post Rotate Your Home Garden appeared first on Downtown Homestead.



from Downtown Homestead http://downtownhomestead.com/rotate-your-home-garden/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Air Condition Your Garden

July, it is the time of the year when air conditioning is as important in the garden as it is in the home. You, as the temperature rises, can cool off with an electric fan, a cool drink or by hiding away in a cool spot. Your plants are not quite that lucky; yet certain gardening techniques can be employed to help your plants through the summer months. The benefits of air conditioning in your garden will show up in the form of increased production, greater resistance to disease and pests and, in general, a more attractive vista. An improper over-heated environment during the warmer months often leads to wilt, dropping of buds and yellowing of foliage. Aeration of the soil is concerned with its exposure to the air. If this is lacking then your plants very likely will suffer this summer. Believe it or not but there are millions of tiny spaces between the soil particles and this is where air resides. Soils that become water-logged force out this air, a condition that leads to souring of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Harvest and Store Garden Vegetables

Vegetables gathered at just the right time can be stored naturally or, in many cases, by deep freezing, for use months later in the kitchen. Nature, however, makes its own provision for over- winter storage and the survival of the species, which involves either the production of seed (peas, beans, etc.) or roots to remain in the ground to produce seed heads the following season (parsnips, carrots, etc.). Vegetables in this latter group store much better if left in the ground and lifted as required, or stored in clamps. parsnips can be left in the ground throughout the winter Root crops should never be stored in plastic bags, for they will invariably rot. If you have well- drained soils, where slugs are not a problem, a winter hardy variety of carrot such as ‘Autumn King’ is best left in the ground; carrots stored in sand or peat often shrivel, rot or go moldy. Parsnips are certainly best left in the row; frost improves the flavor but it is a good idea to lift a few at a time during...
Post a Comment
Read more

Organic Edible Gardening With Kids

Teach Kids to Grow Vegetables and Herbs Without Chemicals Composting You can start an organic garden with your child any time of year by composting . Playing in the dirt is elementally satisfying to children, so give them children’s garden tools to help you hack away at your mound, introducing oxygen and hastening the breakdown of your scraps. If you live in an apartment, consider a small vermiculture station in the kitchen where red wiggler worms turn vegetable scraps into rich garden soil. Red worms appreciate paper bedding, so the child can shred old homework and tests to get the bin started.     Seed Starting The smallest toddler can get in on the gardening game when you start a flat of vegetable seeds at home . If a child is dexterous enough to pick up oat cereal circles, he can grasp a bean and drop it into the soil. Arm your child with a watering can whose rose delivers a very fine spray, so he doesn’t dislodge the seeds with his exuberance. Deter damping off ...
Post a Comment
Read more