Easy-to-learn basics of crop rotation

Crop rotation is a traditional agricultural method that helps healthy vegetables grow every year. If you’re starting your own vegetable garden, these tips will help.

This practice prevents crops from nutrient depletion and also guards against the risk of soil-borne diseases being carried from one crop to another.

How it works is you alternate or rotate crops every growing season so that different plant groups grow in one bed year after year.

Different crops have different nutrient needs. If the same plants are grown in the same bed each year, the soil will be drained of nutrients necessary for healthy plants. You’ll soon see your hard work come to nothing if the soil can’t sustain what you plant.

A good example of this is salad vegetables. They use a lot of nitrogen so should be rotated with crops that have low nitrogen requirements like  carrots or onions. It makes sense that this practice gives the soil a rest for replenishment so it can support healthy crops.

You can avoid plant diseases that are carried by soil with crop-rotation. Take club root, for instance. This affects brassicas or cabbages, cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts. If successive sowing takes place in the same bed, a new crop of these plants will be infected. Crop rotation helps prevent this.

• At its simplest, crop rotation means not planting the same vegetable group in the same place two years running.
• A three-year plan could ensure that each bed has vegetables from different groups for two years in a row before replanting the same crop.
• Vegetables are generally divided into groups but if this is too many, the fruiting plants such as tomatoes and peppers can be grouped with the root crops to form four categories.

In order to have a successful crop rotation practice, first you have to divide your vegetable plot into sections.

Divide the garden into separate beds according to the number of rotation groups you’ll use.

The most commonly used rotation plan covers five growing seasons by grouping produce into five categories. These are:

• Legumes:peas, beans, green manure crops.
• Brassicas:Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli.
• Fruiting crops:tomatoes, sweet peppers, chilli peppers, eggplant.
• Allium family:chives, onions, garlic.
• Root crops:beets, potatoes, carrots and parsnips.

Before you plant anything this year, make a plan for crop rotation. This practice will help you grow healthy vegetables for years to come.