Planning Crop Rotation

Planning Crop Rotation
The Garden Designer portion of the Garden Wizard ($9.95) and the Garden Master ($29.95) CDs are the best thing I've seen for planning and creating your garden. And you can make your rotations just by renaming your file and entering in the new crops.

I've talked about crop rotation before, so I'll just mention briefly that there are three main reasons for rotating crops including
1) To replace certain nutrients because the planted variety uses more than the next variety to be planted.
2) To break the reproduction cycle of insect pests which feed on the planted variety. And
3) to stop a disease that has infected the crop.

The balanced natural mineral nutrients you feed your garden make rotation for #1 unnecessary. And a backyard garden is typically too small to accomplish #s 2 and 3, because the bugs and diseases can travel short distances.

Therefore, we recommend you work to avoid 2 & 3 by "cultural practices" such as:
1) Eliminating all weeds from garden and perimeter. This alone can do more to stop those things than anything - by making a hostile environment for your garden's enemies. And by the way, often the diseases are brought into your garden by bugs.
2) Water only the beds, and never use sprinkling.
3) Grow and transplant healthy, bug and disease-free plants into your garden, and then grow them fast by proper watering and feeding, so their immune systems can fight off any invasions.

What about crop rotation - is it important?

Author: Jim Kennard

There are three reasons for crop rotation: 1. Some crops utilize more of a specific nutrient than others, and by rotating crops soil fertility can be better equalized. 2. Some crops attract specific insects. By rotating the crops the cycle of insect build-up is minimized. 3. If a crop becomes diseased, rotating to a crop that is not susceptible to that disease can break the cycle of the disease pathogen. All of these conditions are of only minor importance, however. When plant nutrition is really understood, fertility can be maintained easily. And by keeping a weed-free, clean garden and uniform, healthy, fast-maturing crops, insect and disease build-up are seldom experienced.