As a home gardener, there’s nothing more satisfying than growing your own vegetables but, perhaps, you are looking for a way to increase your yield, or grow healthier vegetables. Well, if you’re not already practising crop rotation, you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes.
What is crop rotation?
The concept became popular in the 18th century and proved to be immensely successful. The method involved dividing land into four sections, and planting three crops annually. The crops were rotated to a different section every year, with one section always remaining empty. This system is still in use on agricultural land, but you can adopt it to suit your garden or allotment too. You don’t have to leave an empty area and by carefully selecting the crops you grow, you can enjoy the benefits that crop rotation brings.
The advantages of crop rotation
You’ll know all about the importance of protecting nutrients in your soil, but you may not realise that planting the same plants in the same area of soil, year after year, can have an adverse effect. This is particularly true if you plant crops such as tomatoes, lettuce or cabbage. These plants use lots of nitrogen, so if you plant them in the same spot you’ll find the soil rapidly becomes depleted of nutrients. To correct this, simply rotate these leafy vegetables with crops that add nitrogen to the soil – legumes such as peas and beans are particularly useful for this. Crop rotation also helps combat disease in your garden, as new crops are immune to any crop-specific bugs or diseases that developed over the previous year.
The golden rules of crop rotation
- Never grow the same crop in the same area of soil two years in a row.
- Always rotate heavy-feeding vegetables (leafy vegetables, potatoes, tomatoes) with legumes or clover to add vital nutrients back in to the soil.
- Avoid planting root vegetables on areas, which have been heavily fertilised, as this will cause lush foliage at the expense of the edible parts of the plant.
Try crop rotation and, however big or small your garden, you’ll notice the difference in the soil, as also in the quality and taste of your vegetables.