The gravid affair about garden with annual vegetables is that it ’s very cheap to get start up and the plants produce very quickly , so gardeners get to see ( and smack ) the results of their drive in a very short meter .
Some gardener get discouraged after a few years of successful vegie gardening when things start change . plant may seem to not grow as well any longer or seem to be less generative . Sometimes it ’s bad – plants may even die in a flash from strange disease . Gardeners may come to the conclusion that gardening is unmanageable and their initial success was just tyro fate !
Not feeding the garden with fertilizer ( at the start of bound and autumn ) is a common founder misidentify , and that ’s easily fix by feed the garden . But what if you do feed your vegetable garden and it ’s still get less productive ?
Quite often the reason why accomplished veggie gardeners run into major military issue with productivity and disease in their vegetable garden is because they ’re not practisingcrop rotation . They may make the misunderstanding of design a lasting garden patch for tomatoes , or putting aside a favourite spot in the garden for grow Brassica oleracea italica , and then plant the same veggie in the same fix , yr after year , which is a trusted formula for garden problem !
What is Crop Rotation?
harvest gyration is the practise of imbed a particular crop in a different point in the garden each class , moving the planting locating from year to class so the any garden location will never grows the same character of plant for long than a class .
The direction that this is accomplished is that each type of veggie is planted in freestanding garden beds in a certain succession or order , and then each year the planting location for each type of veg is moved to the next spotlight in the sequence or order . This taxonomic approach see to it , for case , that tomatoes will not be grown in the same garden bed for two years in a wrangle .
Let ’s have a look at an illustration to see how this system works .
In this example there are three garden beds .
In the first year we implant tomato plant in the first garden bed , in the 2nd year we plant them in the second garden seam , in the third year we establish them in the third garden bed .
What happens after three age ? In the quaternary year we go back to the beginning and plant the tomatoes back in the first garden bottom once again . We keep recapitulate the succession each year , it ’s that simpleton .
What happens to the other vegetables in the other beds ? They all move along one spot to the next bottom too , as indicate in the diagram .
Benefits of Crop Rotation
One of the primary design of a vegetable nurseryman is to grow food , the more the better , and crop revolution is a system that will increase output , and maintain high yields over the foresighted term .
The practise of crop gyration maximises yields by :
Preventing the depletion of soil nutrients – sure vegetables will utilise more of some nutrient and less of others . If you grow the same vegetables in the same spot over and over , they will deplete the most used nutrients for that industrial plant very quickly .
Reducing pests and diseases – if the same sort of veg are grown in the same location continuously , gadfly that opt those vegetables will gain there . If you keep planting more intellectual nourishment for the pests right where they subsist , their populations will grow chop-chop and you ’ll have a major pest problem on your script . Move their food and it break their facts of life cycle . Also , pathogens that cause antecedent disease can build up in the soil , reinfecting the plants they favor if you keep replanting in the same localization . Another benefit of naturally reducing pest and diseases is a reduction in chemic usage in the garden ( assuming you use garden chemical ) .
maintain dirt healthy – sealed plant used in craw rotation really tot nutrients back into the territory , maintain alimental levels to keep the land healthy to support plant life growth .
How to Rotate Crops
At this item you ’re likely marvel how do we rotate our crop ?
There are many potential system of grouping plants together to rotate them . We ca n’t just sieve our plants by their common name , such as tomatoes , capsicums , chilli , eggplants , potatoes and rotate them that means . Why ? The plants just mentioned are in fact all from the same family ( the Solanaceae or Nightshade family unit ) and deal usual disease !
We need ways of grouping the various type of vegetables to ward off nutrient depletion and the habitus - up of pestis and disease .
In this article we ’ll take care at two systems of crop rotation :
Let us have a flavor at each of these systems and how we can use them in our gardens .
Crop Rotation by Plant Family
phytologist classify plants according to a complex hierarchic system , the detail of which does n’t really concern us . Within this system of classify plants we find that plant are classified byFamily , thenGenus , thenSpecies .
All plants belong to the same phratry will be associate and have common trait and property .
Atomatois classify as Family : Solanaceae , Genus : Solanum , Species : Solanum genus Lycopersicon
Apotatois classified as Family : Solanaceae , Genus : Solanum , Species : genus Solanum tuberosum
As we can see from this example , tomato and potato not only belong to the same family , but the same genus , so they ’re quite tight related , which means they will have things in common and as a outcome be affected by standardised disease .
By aggroup flora byFamily , we can revolve whole works families from seam to bed and eliminate the trouble of spread diseases through the land that are common to particular class .
The rules for Crop Rotation by Plant Family are quite unproblematic :
For example , in one bed , flora beans ( legume kin ) , the next year plant potatoes ( tomato family ) , the third year works cucumbers ( squash family ) . After that , you may initiate over with another legume - kinsfolk vegetable or get down another rotary motion serial .
harvest aggroup for Rotation to Control Soil - borne Diseases
With six bottom , we can plant each chemical group in each bed ( Group A in bed 1 , Group B in seam 2 , etc . ) and then rotate to the next bed the next twelvemonth ( Group A in bed 2 , Group B in layer 3 , etc . ) .
Keeping in judgement that some vegetables only acquire in the warmer or cool season , we would n’t be revolve all mathematical group list in the tabular array at the same time , as this wo n’t make the most efficient use of the beds . For more efficient use of garden distance we can plant two beds at the same time with the same group , say if it ’s the tomato family ( Group C ) , we can embed bed 1 and 3 , then next year lie with 2 and 4 , follow by beds 3 and 6 – this will give a 3 yr cycle .
Typically during the cooler seasons there are less plants that can be grown so we can double up on planting groups . Say we ’re look at the brassica family ( Group B ) , we can plant beds 1 and 3 , then next year beds 2 and 4 , followed by beds 3 and 6 – this will give a 3 year cps once again .
Refer to the planting calendars for when to seed the vegetables from each group . The planting calendars indicate when to sow in the vegetable seeds . The seedlings are usually transplant into the garden about 4 calendar week later if they are magnanimous enough to transplant .
Crop Rotation by Plant Nutrient Demands
Some plants need more nutrients ( intellectual nourishment or fertiliser ) than others , and some plant really add nutrients back to the dirt . If we always put plant life that take up huge amounts of nutrients in the same location in the garden , they will quickly use up the grease and our productiveness will turn down . By rotating plants with unlike nutritive demands on the territory , we can maintain grime fertility and maximise productiveness .
In the Quran “ How to Grow More Vegetables ” by John Jeavons , we are introduce to a system of crop gyration that categorise plant asHeavy Feeders , Heavy GiversandLight Feeders .
We can identify each of the categories as follows :
cloggy feeders – most vegetables fall down into this family , these are very hungry plants that take a lot of nutrients out from the soil . They want a lot of N in special , which plants employ for green leafy growth .
Heavy Givers – these are nitrogen - fix plants that can take nitrogen from the air and commute it into a physique usable by flora . They refund nitrogen to the dirt , maintaining soil fertility .
Light Feeders – which admit all root crops , only use a minor amount of nutrients , giving the soil a rest and a opportunity to recover before the large feeders are planted once again .
To use this system , in any garden layer , rotate the plant groups in the edict of operose feeder - > Heavy givers - > Light feeders .
Here is a listing of vegetable nutritious requirements for each of the three category :
( Source : “ Arizona Master Gardener Manual ” by Arizona Cooperative Extension , College of Agriculture , The University of Arizona )
The impenetrable presenter are soil building industrial plant and this category includes all N - fix works , of which there are many , much more than are listed above .
There ’s also another option possible with this system , a 4th stage that allows extra soil construction , and there are two ways to do it :
If you ’re rum about dark-green manure crop , there are both quick season and cool season flora used for this aim to increase soil fecundity .
look on your climate and geographical location the plant change used as green manure may vary somewhat , but they all work the same way .
Small Space Crop Rotation
What do we do if we only have a small garden , or very few garden bottom , how can crop rotary motion be used in such example ?
It ’s significant to be able-bodied to ‘ think outside the square ’ and come up with creative solutions when faced with such problem .
Conclusion
Practising crop rotation of one-year veggie is a well-grounded way of life to minimise blighter and diseases , increase issue and keep the grunge healthy and prolific in the process . By creatively using garden pots and other container we can create the eq of an extra bottom to rotate through and create excess growing blank space in small - space gardening situation . Unless we ’re get vegetables in a food woods surroundings where annual plant are scattered randomly through a predominately recurrent horticulture system , then yearly veg harvest rotationis a mustfor all produce gardener !
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