Plant Rotation In Your Garden: Why It's Important
The Importance Of Rotating Plants In Your Garden
Most of us in the early planning stages of our 2018 garden season and we all want to have the best harvest, the healthiest plants and more of a bounty than last year. But when that doesn't happen, what do we do? Well, if you're like me...
- A) You swear under your breath.
- B) You research why your tomato plants aren't doing well this year
- C) You begin blaming Mother Nature
- D) You sigh, take the loss of the harvest and swear to yourself that next year will be better
Last year I made a beginners' garden mistake. I planted my tomato plants in the exact same location as the previous year. Why was that a mistake? Let me tell you why...
The top reasons you should rotate your garden plants and crops include decreasing potential pest control and issues, reducing the spread of soil-borne disease and avoiding nutrient depletion and deficiencies in the soil.
My problem with my tomato plants was by planting them in the same location, and not feeding back certain nutrients into the soil, the soil was no longer healthy enough for tomatoes.
According to the YARA data base for growing tomatoes:
Nitrogen is needed at early stages of development to encourage good strong seedling and plant development. Peak requirement is just before flowering. Most Phosphorus is required early on in the plant’s development to ensure good root growth and flowering. Potassium is needed in greater quantities than nitrogen. Calcium is also needed in relatively large quantities. In many situations, it is equally as important as nitrogen. Over 60% of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium taken up by the plant, is utilized by the fruit
So last year's tomato plants, as well as the previous year as I used the same area of the garden for the plants, sucked the phosphorus and potassium from the soil. The plants were doomed from the moment I transplanted them into the ground.
Plans For Change While Considering Crop Rotation
- Since sunflowers are known for eating up the extra nitrogen in soil, they will be planted where the tomato plants were the last two years.
- I will be planting my tomato plants into 5-gallon buckets so I can control the extra nutrients they will need throughout the season
- Same with my pepper plants- they will be 5-gallon buckets as well for the same reason
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In one of my gardening books (The Everything Grow Your Own Vegetables Book by Catherine Abbott- this chart is listed as a way of showing you how to rotate your crops and plants according to the Four Bed Rotation.
I'll be following along with the above chart to reorganize the 2018 garden plan. Now that I have seeds sowed and seedlings sprouting, I'll be working on the new sketch of the proposed garden this weekend.
To be successful this year, I will have to plan carefully.
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resteemed, but i cant upvote you?
I think tomatoes are the worst, but i do grow peas with my tomatoes now... companion planting is really key to helping resolve problems with crop rotation... but also there are so many plants that just benefit each other, peas and carrots, strawberries and thyme, ill do a post on symbiotic gardening...
OH GREAT! I'd love to read that post!
I'm still in the early stages of all this gardening, learning and harvesting but eventually I'll get it all... I hope!
I’m going to start following you. I’m in the planning stage of our garden. We recently moved into a 20 year old pine thicket. Cleared some ground for the house. Our soil is really really high on clays. Not even sure where to start. I’ve been making some compost using the chicken poo and old coffee grounds. I’m hoping that will help the soil some. I will prolly not even plant this year and just keep working and trying to prepare the soil.
es when we had chickens years ago I had no worries about rich soil, etc.. but now we have no chickens so I was spoiled before and never considered all the nutrients and concerns.
I've been reading about nutrients, epsom salt, coffee grounds and eggs shells recently to see what I can do.
Yep I’m using coffee grinds, egg shells and shredded paper along with the poo. I’m hoping it turns out
You may want to check the pH of the soil before planting. It's my understanding that pines make the soil acidic enough that some plants can't grow in it.
Thanks, Yes I'm sure the PH is high.. I'm going to try to get the county to test my soil and tell me how much lime it needs..
This is something that I've always intended on doing, but I always end up putting things back in pretty much the same places each year. You can definitely tell the difference when the soil begins to be depleted!
Yes I should have seen it last year but I was so focused on making sure my herbs in the garden were doing well and I lost sight of the heartier plants and vegetables.
I remember this from years and years ago; there was always a lot of planning and planning on paper of the whole garden by the adults before anything ever got sown or planted. It seemed silly (to a child) at the time, but there was definitely a method to that particular "madness."
Bright Blessings!
Yes, it's amazing how much time, effort and thought goes into planning out a garden; and when you have a small parcel of land, you really have to be creative.
I've grown a lot of things in 5 gallon buckets over the last few years, including tomatoes, but I think I've finally got my main garden soil ready to support them again, so I'll be putting them there this year. I'm wanting to do some hardcore companion planting with the tomatoes this year, so I'm going to need the room in the big garden.
Oh cool that you have the main garden area soil ready!!! I am happy for you; but also envious!
Yeah, this year I will be the Bucket Lady of the neighborhood!
Oh, we’ll have buckets. Even if I didn’t need them... The neighbors need something to talk about, right? lol
I guess I'm going to have to do more research. I hadn't even thought about that. I have limited spaces that get good sun so I had planted my tomatoes in the back. Maybe I'll skip the tomatoes this year and go with something that's shorter. Then nothing gets shaded out.
I can't skip tomatoes- without them I can't make and can my marinara sauce. I have thought about maybe buying a few pecks again this year to make extra sauce, salsa, etc but once I get the plans sketched out I should be able to make the final determination.
They do say to measure twice and cut once. That doesn't directly apply, but the whole planning aspect is what I was getting at. I think it's wise that you're preparing ahead of time. Will probably get you a whole lot further than winging it.
Crop or plant rotation is a good cultural practice that improves yield. Growing up, I practiced that on my little garden and it made a difference for me while my peers complained.
That's wonderful! YOu started early so you understand all the issues. I guess I just took it all for granted before. So now I start from square one, more or less.
preach it honey! crop rotation is ESSENTIAL for healthy soil & happy plants. most of my gardening has been done in raised beds, so i've been able to cheat the system a little bit by going on three year cycles (i always add a heap of compost in each winter & spring) ... but yeah. add in the companion planting & it's a win all around!
Oh yes!! I have definitely learned a valuable lesson from last year. I am intending on checking the soil pH, nutrient levels and all of it. I never realized so much science went into gardening.
You could plant some nitrogen fixers with your sunflowers to allow them to climb up the sunflowers! I love using sunflowers as “trellises”! It’s so much fun to watch the plants use each other. :)
me too! It looks so beautiful when you've got pole beans and other vines climbing up the sunflowers.
I used them once as tomato cages, it worked decently well, actually!! Haha. And unintentionally a cantaloupe decided to use a sunflower as a trellis, I loved it!
That is a really cool idea. I like it :) I am growing most of the tomatoes in the greenhouse this year, I wonder how tall a sunflower can grow. I might try it just to see.
For my pole beans this year I'd like to try the tri-pod sticks as pole and see how they do. Last year my beans' harvest went kaput and I was discouraged.
I bet that will look really pretty! Do you know what the problem was? I have something fail on me every year. It always seems so random.
I have eight sunflower seedlings right now- Dwarf and evening sun and I am planning on using them along the back of the property's edge as like a its own fence. I figured the birds in the woods behind our house would enjoy the treat come autumn.
That sounds wonderful. Evening sun sounds so pretty! We get a lot of birds here in the spring, it's crazy! The first year I planted sunflowers I woke up to find a kazillion holes where the seeds had been. Then later in the season we found sunflowers growing in random placed from where the birds dropped them. Last year I had to cover the bed with a tarp until the sprouts popped up. New lessons every year!
The evening sun ones are a bright orange and I think will contrast against the woods nice.
Oh man! I hope I don't find random sunflowers all over the area- I think my neighbor wouldn't like that.
I covered mine with coffee filters towards the end to keep the birds away but I only had four plants. This year I'll have more so I won't be as stingy.
I'll have to take a look for some of those, they sound lovely.
This is a must in your garden, there are also some things that you do not plant close together also. Beans and corn are fine to be close together, but tomatoes and corn being close is not a good thing. That is what my grandpa always told me.
And let's not get started on companion gardening- OY!
So much to go into it. When I was a little girl and my grandma would plant her garden, I never understood all her thinking. I was thinking.. just bury the seed and it'll grow.. then when I grew up and started my own, I understood all the planning
There is SO much to companion planting, I find it completely overwhelming! Haha I try to just stick to the basics and keep it simple so I don’t feel defeated with all of the information. Haha
Oh I know! Basic is the way to go!
I never knew gardening could be so stressful! It's supposed to be relaxing.. right?!
Sometimes I find when I learn too much about a subject, it becomes much more difficult to conquer than when I knew less. Hahah. That is definitely true for me and gardening, and pretty much everything I take on here with homesteading. Lol.
It’s like with fishing, it’s only relaxing if you set the fishing rod in a rod holder, sit down, have a coffee and a chat and watch the sunset and then pack up. But if you really want to catch a fish every single time, you need to be more active and pro-active with planning etc...
It can be overwhelming at times. I would talk to my grandpa and watch him and be so confused myself. I had a wonderful garden year after year, I wish he was still around so I could learn so much more from him. I miss sitting on the front porch at night and talking about gardens.
Yes I miss spending time with my grandma too. Some days I wish she were still here to tell her stories and help me in the garden. I could really use her wisdom.