By Heather Rhoades
Image by Southern Foodways Alliance Last year, you lost half your tomato plants and a quarter of your pepper plants. Your zucchini plants have stopped producing and the peas are looking a bit peaked. You’ve been planting your garden the same way for years, and up till now, you have not had a problem. Maybe it is time to consider home garden crop rotation. Let’s look at why is crop rotation important and how to do vegetable garden crop rotation.
Why Is Crop Rotation Important
Different vegetables belong to different families and different botanical families have different nutritional needs and have different issues they are susceptible to.
When you grow plants from the same family in the same family in the same place year after year, they slowly leach away the specific nutrients that they need. Eventually, without rotating vegetables, the area will be depleted of the nutrients that family needs.
On a related note, vegetables in the same botanical family will also be susceptible to the same pests and diseases. Plant the same families in the same spot year after year and you may as well put a sign for an all you can eat buffet out for these pests and diseases.
Rotation of your vegetable garden plants will stop these issues from affecting your garden.
Home Garden Crop Rotation
Rotating vegetables at home is simple. Make sure that plants from the same family do not get planted in the same spot for more than 3 years in a row.
If a spot has a pest or disease problem, don’t plant the affected botanical families there for at least two years.
Rotation of vegetable garden is not difficult, it just requires planning. Every year, before you plant your garden, think on where plants were planted last year and how they performed the year before. If they performed poorly the year before, consider how vegetable garden crop rotation could improve their performance.
Now that you know rotating vegetables and why crop rotation is important, you can incorporate this into the planning of your garden. home garden crop rotation can greatly increase the yield of your garden.
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By Heather Rhoades
Image by Southern Foodways Alliance Last year, you lost half your tomato plants and a quarter of your pepper plants. Your zucchini plants have stopped producing and the peas are looking a bit peaked. You’ve been planting your garden the same way for years, and up till now, you have not had a problem. Maybe it is time to consider home garden crop rotation. Let’s look at why is crop rotation important and how to do vegetable garden crop rotation.
Why Is Crop Rotation Important
Different vegetables belong to different families and different botanical families have different nutritional needs and have different issues they are susceptible to.
When you grow plants from the same family in the same family in the same place year after year, they slowly leach away the specific nutrients that they need. Eventually, without rotating vegetables, the area will be depleted of the nutrients that family needs.
On a related note, vegetables in the same botanical family will also be susceptible to the same pests and diseases. Plant the same families in the same spot year after year and you may as well put a sign for an all you can eat buffet out for these pests and diseases.
Rotation of your vegetable garden plants will stop these issues from affecting your garden.
Home Garden Crop Rotation
Rotating vegetables at home is simple. Make sure that plants from the same family do not get planted in the same spot for more than 3 years in a row.
If a spot has a pest or disease problem, don’t plant the affected botanical families there for at least two years.
Rotation of vegetable garden is not difficult, it just requires planning. Every year, before you plant your garden, think on where plants were planted last year and how they performed the year before. If they performed poorly the year before, consider how vegetable garden crop rotation could improve their performance.
Now that you know rotating vegetables and why crop rotation is important, you can incorporate this into the planning of your garden. home garden crop rotation can greatly increase the yield of your garden.
Print This Article - Printer Friendly Version
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