Crop rotation in the vegetable garden: why when how?

Many gardeners practicerotation or crop rotation in the vegetable garden because this has advantages at different levels. It is indeed interesting to take advantage of abundant crops without having to treat your plantations against pests or even to fertilize your soil too much. Let’s find out what are the main reasons that justify the rotation culturalehow often to vary the location of plants and how best to manage the arrangement of vegetables to preserve soil fertility.

Why practice crop rotation (or rotation) in the vegetable garden?

If you want to make a success of your vegetable garden without abusing treatment products, the best solution is to opt for crop rotation or rotation. It consists of do not grow the same vegetables in the same place two, three or even four or six years in a row. Of course, plants have to be taken into account. Crop rotation allows:

• To naturally prevent the risks of invasion of parasites or even of maladies which can ruin a vegetable garden in a very short time.
• Of limit soil nutrient depletion. Rotation avoids the depletion of the soil since gourmet vegetables change plots year after year and are replaced by plants that are not very demanding or even enrich the soil.

Prevention of pests and diseases through crop rotation

Opt for therotation is necessary since it disrupts the life cycle of parasites. This is the best way to get rid of it naturally. It must be understood that by always cultivating the same family of vegetables on the same plot of land, undesirables of all kinds find there enough to prosper and reproduce, so much so that we suffer their attacks from year to year, and the problems grow over time, diminishing the cultures.

Let’s not forget that many undesirables survive very well from one year to the next in the soil. Because they are usually specific to a particular botanical family, if you don’t practice crop rotation, you have no chance of dislodging them.

Protecting the soil balance through crop rotation

If we neglect crop rotation, we are also faced with another problem concerning the plant nutrition. Indeed, by dint of drawing the same nutrients from the soil, they end up impoverishing it, and it is therefore no longer able to meet the nutritional needs of the plants in the vegetable garden.

Rotating crops allows the gardener to cultivate for several years on the same plot plants that have different nutritional needs. In this way, it also avoids the accumulation of toxins, since all plants without exception release them into the soil and this becomes harmful after a few seasons.

When to alternate vegetable garden plants?

A little organization makes it easy to rotate crops from year to year. To do this, gardeners with good experience in this area recommend divide your vegetable garden into several plots, one of which can be reserved for fallowing to allow the soil to recover. On the other hand, we do not recommend leaving the soil bare for too long, especially in winter, because it risks eroding.

For example, if you choose to create seven plots, six are cultivated each year, but you must take care to rotate your plantations so as not to install the same vegetables on the same plot several years in a row.

It is of course ideally necessary to take into account certain characteristics of the plants concerned so that the rotation is truly beneficial to all. There are greedy plants that considerably weaken the soil, others on the contrary that enrich it with nitrogen and plants that are not greedy at all, being satisfied with little.

Plants in the vegetable garden not affected by crop rotation

Vegetable garden plants falling into the category of perennial plants remain in place for several years. We no longer present artichoke, strawberry or even a number of aromatics such as parsley, basil, thyme… All these plants, just like rhubarb for that matter, settle preferably at the ends of the vegetable garden or even on borders, since they are not concerned by the rotation.

How to organize your crop rotation in the vegetable garden?

Alternating vegetable plants according to a certain logic is essential for enjoy your garden. Everyone has every interest in respecting an ideal cycle of rotation according to the families of plants. To do this, it is essential to classify the plants by family so that all those who have both a similar root system and identical needs cannot be planted in the same place several years in a row. This is ultimately not rocket science, as we can see in the following example.

To better understand this example of crop rotation in the vegetable garden over a period of 6 yearsit is useful to know a little more about the different groups of plants included in it.

• The improving plants : we find for example in this group the broad bean, the lentil, the bean in grain, the green bean, the pea, the chickpea… These plants are called improvers because they fix the atmospheric nitrogen, therefore enrich the soil. They can all do without amendment, as is also the case with “green manures”, that is to say clover, alfalfa or even sainfoin.
• The plants susceptible to cabbage clubroot : these include green cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, head cabbage, cauliflower, rutabaga, radish, turnip. Note that clubroot is a fungal disease.
• The leafy vegetables : these are salads (endive, watercress, lettuce, chicory, dandelion…), spinach, leek, fennel, celery or even basil. They are nitrogen hungry.
• The fruit vegetables : there are cucumbers, gherkins, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, peppers, squash… If it is recommended to cultivate them on a new plot each year, it is because they exhaust the soil in nutrients.
• The root or bulb vegetables : carrot, parsnip, beetroot, tuberous parsley, turnip, salsify, marshmallow, burdock, radish are part of this category. They appreciate being grown in organic manure. They draw nitrogen from quite deep in the soil. We can also add to this category onion, garlic and shallot which need few nutrients.
• The potato : it is moderately greedy in nutrients. Its cultivation enriches the soil with nitrogen and aerates the earth. The potato is therefore beneficial to the cultivable land.

It’s good before sowing and planting that you have to establish your crop rotation plan so as not to be caught off guard. And the fact of anticipating enough is important to simplify the task. It certainly requires a little thought at the beginning, but after a few years, you end up acquiring a great experience. With enough knowledge in the field of rotation, it is then possible to modify its plots at its convenience. By applying the right principles, the gardener can easily maintain fertile soil and protect his crops against pests and diseases.