Growing vegetables and herbs in their garden for many today is both a useful and a favorite pastime. Of course, it is very important to get a good harvest from your site. The best result is achieved when crop rotation is correctly adjusted in the garden.
The importance of crop rotation
If the same plants are constantly planted in one place, then their own enzymes (root secretions) poison the soil and yield decreases. So, for example, with long-term cultivation of celery, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, cabbage in the soil, pathogens of various diseases accumulate in the soil. Therefore, crop rotation is required in the garden, that is, an annual change of crop growing places on the site.
The same cultures and their kindred ones are recommended to be planted in the same places after at least three seasons. It is important to comply with this condition because different crops require different fertilizers. So, for example, cucumbers, cabbage, zucchini, leeks, pumpkin need organic fertilizers; carrots, beets, parsley - in mineral; onions, garlic, herbs, tomatoes - both in minerals and in organic matter.
The benefits of crop rotation
The rotation of crops in the garden allows you to:
- reduce the influence of pests and pathogens of diseases that have accumulated in the soil, especially dangerous for the past culture and less dangerous for the next;
- improve nutrient intake from the soil by plants;
- it is more rational to use mineral and organic fertilizers, given their effect and aftereffect on different crops;
- avoid the negative effects that are caused by the root secretions of this plant species;
- dig deeply gradually (only for crops that need deep loosening of the soil).
Crop rotation
In order to organize the crop rotation of vegetable crops in the garden and not get confused in the places of planting, the following solution is often proposed. The whole garden is conditionally divided into four zones (although three are possible). We plant cultures in groups. The first group is vegetables that need organics. The second group is vegetables that need mineral fertilizers. The third group is vegetables, for which both organic and minerals are important. And the fourth group is potatoes.
For the next season, you need to choose such places for planting plants, so that previous cultures would suit them:
- Beans - cabbage, potatoes, root vegetables, tomatoes.
- Potatoes - legumes and early cabbage.
- Cabbage - root vegetables, legumes, tomatoes, potatoes.
- Tomatoes, peppers - legumes, root vegetables, cabbage.
- Onions - potatoes, pumpkin, root vegetables, and legumes.
- Root vegetables - potatoes, tomatoes, early cabbage.
- Greens - legumes, cabbage, potatoes, pumpkin.
- Cucumbers and pumpkins - root vegetables, early cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes.
You also need to know the unacceptable predecessors. For example, do not fit:
- Cabbage - pumpkin, radish, rutabaga, radish.
- Leaf beets - spinach.
- Onions - leeks, carrots, radishes, celery.
- Carrots - zucchini, parsley, tomatoes, fennel, celery.
- Cucumbers, pumpkin - rutabaga.
- Radish - kohlrabi.
- Dining beets - tomatoes, spinach.
- Tomatoes and other nightshade - cucumbers, zucchini.
How to increase productivity
Observing certain crop rotation rules in the garden, on one plot of land you can get two crops a year. For example, before planting pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, you can grow radishes, spinach, lettuce. After cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, sow turnips and radishes. After early potatoes, plant kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli. Radish, lettuce, pepper, and spinach grow well after peas.
Between rows of slow-growing vegetables, fast-growing ones can be planted. For example, between rows of carrots, beets, celery, you can grow lettuce, radishes, spinach, green onions. Radish and salad can be grown between rows of cabbage (early and late). At the edges of the beds greens grow well.
It is useful to grow more heat-loving plants (cucumbers, peppers, eggplants) among higher ones (tomatoes, peas, corn).
J. Seymour Rules
According to J. Seymour, it is recommended to take into account the following rules, thanks to which it is easy to plan a crop rotation in the garden:
- If potatoes were planted on heavy moist soils, then other root crops can be grown there in the third, fourth year.
- Legumes love well-limped soil, which potatoes don't like. Therefore, it is better not to plant potatoes after legumes.
- Cabbage lime is loved, but not fresh. They are best planted after legumes.
- Radishes, salads, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini love rotted manure and compost. After them, it is good to grow root crops.
- In some places, you can constantly plant herbs (lettuce, spinach, dill).
Crop rotation table
So, to make it easier to organize crop rotation in the garden, the crop rotation table will provide information in a more visual form.
Crop rotation| Culture | Predecessors |
| The best | Valid | The bad |
| Cabbage varieties of medium and late | Legumes, cucumber, carrots, early potatoes | - | Beets, cabbage |
| Beet | Cucumber, greens, green manure, potatoes | Tomatoes, onions, carrots, cauliflower and head cabbage |
| Cauliflower and early varieties | Legumes, onions, cucumber, siderates | Tomatoes, carrots | Root vegetables, cabbage |
| Cucumber, zucchini, squash, pumpkin, zucchini | Onions, early and medium cabbage, cauliflower, garlic, legumes | Potatoes, beets, cucumber, greens | Tomatoes, carrots, late cabbage |
| Tomatoes | Turnips, cucumbers, greens, siderates, cauliflower | Middle and late cabbage, beets, onions | Potatoes, tomatoes |
| Onion garlic | Cucumber, potato, bean, cauliflower and head cabbage | Tomatoes, beets, onions, late cabbage | Carrots, greens |
| Potatoes | Legumes, cauliflower and head cabbage, cucumbers, green manure | Greens, cabbage, carrots, beets | Potatoes, tomatoes |
| Legumes | All varieties of cabbage, potatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers | Tomatoes, greens, table root vegetables, green manure | Legumes |
| Greens | Legumes, cauliflower and head cabbage, onions, cucumbers, siderates | Potatoes, tomatoes, greens, beets | Late cabbage, carrots |
"Conveyor" of vegetables
It is very convenient for the constant supply of fresh herbs and vegetables on the table, the so-called vegetable conveyor. This conveyor begins when in the spring we plant greenery in the garden. Crop rotation in this case helps to achieve the best results.
The sequence of receipt on the table of greens, vegetables, root crops:
- In the spring: a feather of perennial chives, onion-batun, parsley, Jerusalem artichoke tubers left for the winter.
- A little later: sorrel, young nettle, rhubarb, feather onions planted in late April.
- Then: dill and radish.
- From late May to early June: salad mustard, spinach, sprouts grown seedlings, cabbage, basil, coriander.
- In mid-June: early tomatoes and cucumbers, young potatoes, beets, bunch carrots.
- Late June: Cauliflower-grown cauliflower and early cabbage .
- July: tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, beets, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, early potatoes.
- August: squash, legumes, corn, turnips, pumpkin, eggplant, bell peppers.
- Autumn and winter: celery (transplanted into pots), onion feathers, watercress, alfalfa salad, leaf mustard, grown at home.
Given all the advantages of this approach, it is worth remembering about creativity when organizing landings. Crop rotation in the garden will help in this, but you need to apply it according to your needs, capabilities and desire.