This growing season, if you notice that your overall harvest is less than the year before, your plants don’t look as healthy or you experience an increase in pests and disease, that could signal that it’s time to implement crop rotation into your organic garden. A time-tested agricultural practice, crop rotation, according to University of Wisconsin Extension, “involves changing the planting location of vegetables within the garden each season.”
There are quite a few benefits to rotating the crops in yourgarden. Crop rotation is used to maintain the health and fertility of your soil,reduce damage from pests and limit the development of plant diseases. Becauseeach generation of similar plantings suffers from a common set of pests anddiseases, soil-borne diseases can build up after years of growing in the sameplace. Crop rotation won’t prevent all diseases from happening, but it willmake a great difference.
Crop Rotation, TwoApproaches
One method of crop rotation is to divide your plants intobasic harvest groups:
- Root crops
- Fruit crops
- Leafy crops
Using this method, crop groups are moved in a clockwisemotion around your garden each year. It’s easy to adjust this approach based onwhat you like to grow. For example, if you don’t plant any fruiting crops, thatbed can remain fallow, meaning you leave it empty for a season or planted witha cover crop. Cover crops can also be incorporated in your normal rotation.
Another method of crop rotation is keeping it “all in thefamily.” This is probably the most traditional way to rotate crops, keepingmajor botanical family groupings within your vegetable garden:
- Tomato family: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant,potatoes
- Squash family: squash, cucumbers, pumpkins,melons and gourds
- Brassica family: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage,kale, Brussels sprouts, turnips, radishes, mustard greens, andcollards
- Beanfamily:beans, peas, andsoybeans
- Onionfamily:onions, leeks, shallots andgarlic
- Carrotfamily:carrots, parsnips, fennel, parsley, anddill
- Spinachfamily: beets, spinach, swiss chard
There are more families that only have one member, likecorn, okra or sweet potatoes. In a small garden, you can group some familiestogether to make rotations easier. For example, you can put legumes and lettucewith the brassica family.
Keep Organized with aGarden Log or Map
For crop rotation to be effective, do not plant a family inthe same area more than once every three to four years. To help with planning,keep a garden log or map as a record of where your vegetables are planted eachyear. Look to alternate between heavy feeders and light feeders. This willreduce the demand of your soil, since differing crops use different amounts ofsoil nutrients, with some crops adding nutrients back in.
Rotating Crops StillApplies for Smaller Gardens, too
You can still apply crop rotation even if you have a smaller garden. Instead of providing each plant group with its own bed, separate however many beds you have into different growing areas. Just know it may be a little more difficult to prevent diseases from spreading in a smaller space, so keep a close eye on your plants and use organic preventative measures like EARTH’S ALLY® Insect or Disease Control.
If you implement these easy crop rotation techniques, you’ll be giving your plants the best preventative medicine you can give to keep your organic garden healthy.
