Crop Rotation & Fertilization

ClissAT

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This article contains information about crop rotation as well as how to fertilize the beds so as to use what was left behind by the last crop or only apply what is necessary for the next crop.

Crop rotation: breaking the cycle of disease and pests organically in your vegetable garden

Looking for a safe organic way to keep pests and disease under control in your vegetable patch? One of the simplest ways is planting your vegetables based around crop rotation. Crop rotation is all about planting groups of similar vegetables together in a different part of the garden each year. It's important to do this because different crops like different soil conditions. Sweet corn and pumpkin love a rich organic soil, but the same soil conditions would fork carrots and other root crops. Pests and diseases tend to effect vegetable groups and will often remain in the soil for years. But by following a rotation system these pests and diseases can't build up in the soil.

The length of a rotation system can vary from 3 to 8 years. The longer the better. But this can be difficult with the size restrictions of the average backyard. So using a number of resources I've collated a few options for you using a 4, 5 or 6 year rotation system.

4 year rotation

crop rotation 4yr bed plan.jpg


Crop rotation is all about moving vegetable groups from one bed to another each year. Our backyard vegetable patch uses this 4 year rotation system.

The first bed starts off with a mixture of roots crops (carrots, parsnips and beetroot) and vegetables belonging to the allium family (onions, garlic and leeks). The second bed begins with sweet corn and cucurbits (pumpkins, squash, cucumber, zucchini and maybe even some watermelons). By autumn the crops in this bed have usually been harvested so you can grow a quick cover of green manure before the next growing season. The third bed in spring starts with the vegetables that prefer a slightly lower pH (also known as acid lovers) such as tomatoes, capsicums (bell peppers), chillies and eggplants. And the fourth bed can be used to grow legumes (peas and beans) and brassicas (cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and pak choy). By spring the following year the sweet corn and cucurbits replace the root crops and onions. The tomatoes, bell peppers and eggplants replace the sweet corn and cucurbits (after the green manure has been dug into the bed). The legumes and brassicas replace the tomatoes and their friends. And of course next, the root crops and onions replace the legumes and brassicas. This system continues so that no vegetable group is ever planted in the same place twice over the four year period. Regardless of whether you're using a 4, 5 or 6 year rotation system you can plant leafy salad vegetables like lettuce anytime and anywhere there's a bit of space.

The timing for when you rotate each bed varies depending on the bed and your local conditions. In cool and temperate climates tomatoes and other crops are usually killed off by frosts. But here in subtropical Queensland we rarely ever get frosts (except in the Downs and some parts of western Brisbane out Ipswich way) so we can have a longer growing season. But you'll generally find that all of the beds are usually rotated around autumn in one form or another.



5 year rotation

By now I hope you have a better understanding about how crop rotation works. So I'm not repeating myself I'll simplify the whole 5 year rotation system:

Bed 1.................. Onions, garlic and leeks followed by...

Bed 2 .................Legumes and brassicas followed by...

Bed 3 .................Root crops followed by...

Bed 4 .................Cucurbits and sweet corn followed by...

Bed 5 .................Tomato, capsicums and eggplants....

and then back to the onions.



Over time the soil in your beds will gradually become more acidic which suits the way each vegetable group is rotated. By the time you rotate the tomatoes, eggplants and capsicums into the bed in their fifth year the soil will ideally suit their acidic nature. That doesn't mean you'll have to wait 5 years to get your crops. It just means the soil will suit them even better as the years go by. A few weeks before you get to the end of the season in autumn sprinkle a good handful or two of lime or dolomite into each square metre of your tomato bed. This will sweeten the soil preparing the bed for the lime loving onions, garlic and leeks. The other vegetable families are then rotated behind the onions. The whole process benefits all vegetable types and your soil.



6 year rotation

The 6 year rotation cycle splits the legumes from the brassicas so you plant:

Bed 1 ...............Onions, garlic and leeks followed by...

Bed 2 ..............Legumes followed by...

Bed 3 ..............Brassicas followed by...

Bed 4 ..............Root crops followed by...

Bed 5 ..............Cucurbits and sweet corn followed by...

Bed 6...............Tomato, capsicums and eggplants....

and then back to the onions.


The same principles for the 5 year rotation system apply to the 6 year rotation system. As with the 4 and 5 year systems you can plant lettuce, parsley, spinach and silverbeet wherever you have a little bit of spare space after harvesting.

When you're making your beds you can apply a heavy organic mixture of homemade and mushroom compost, old manure, blood and bone and dolomite to beds 2, 3, 5 and 6.

Bed 1 should only get dolomite and compost. This way your root crops won't fork from heavily manured soil and your bulbs (like garlic, onions and leeks) won't go mouldy or form poorly.

But what about potatoes?

OK, crop rotation sounds like a good idea, but what about if I want to plant potatoes? This is where you need to start really planning things.

I love potatoes. They're technically from the same family as tomatoes. But I would never have enough room in my tomato bed to fit potatoes in there too. There are only two ways I've found you can get around this (OK three, but the third one is exceptionally tricky).

  1. Make more space. I physically find somewhere else in the garden to grow my potatoes. But don't forget, the same rules apply. You can't plant potatoes (or tomatoes) there for at least four years, unless you want to risk getting disease in your soil.
2Grow up! Well, make your potatoes grow up. Try planting them in old car tyres like I did back at Norman Park once. Just make sure you don't make the same mistake I made: poor drainage. Drill some holes into the tyre walls to let the water escape, otherwise the soil in the tyres will go sour and you'll get a bad crop. Some gardeners believe the materials in rubber tyres can leach out into the soil (and the potatoes). If you've got any health concerns about this issue, you should avoid doing it.

  1. 3Bring the two together. I've never done this, but I've heard of some over enthusiastic gardeners who graft tomato plants onto the base of a potato plant. Result: potatoes under the ground with tomatoes growing on the same plant above ground. I don't know if this is just an urban myth. But if you've had success then please post it here.
Whatever rotation system you use it'll be a lot better for your soil and vegies than not rotating at all. If you don't rotate your crops particular nutrients required by individual groups will become exhausted. Rotation helps your soil rest and organically breaks the breeding and growing cycles of pests and diseases. It's the natural method of pest control and soil management.


  1. Raised Beds
  2. (There's some old formatting I cant get rid of so sorry about the numbering 3,4&5)
  3. A raised bed can be anything created from what we have or what we can scrounge - Example:- old boards like weather boards or bricks built up about 15cm (6 inches), to large container beds with earth or brick foundations 2 or 3 feet up from the ground such as bath tubs, or corrugated iron sided raised beds which are accessible by people in wheel chairs, the frail and elderly. Raised beds also enable you to rotate your crops, so if you have six beds, you'd only plant the same vegetable in that bed once every six year. Crop rotation is a system where you plant up each bed in a block of the same or similar vegetables, such as leeks, onions, garlic, shallots and chives together, or squash, cucumbers, corn, pumpkin and zucchinis together, then the following year, move them all to the next bed. The rotation usually goes something like this:
    1. leeks, onions, garlic, shallots and chives - add lime and compost

    2. legumes (the bean and pea family) - will use up the remaining lime from the previous year and add compost and nitrogen to the soil

    3. leaf vegetables like lettuce, brassicas (the cabbage family), silver beet and spinach - add nitrogen such as blood and bone or aged manures and compost

    4. root vegetables - carrots, parsnips, turnips, radishes etc - add compost

    5. squash, cucumbers, corn, pumpkin and zucchinis - add a little aged manure, compost and potash

    6. tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums (peppers) and chilli - add compost and potash
 
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DarrenP

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Thanks for that, ClissAT. I always swore by crop rotation, and still think it's a practical solution to fighting pests, and saving the soil. However, after doing a lot of reading, I am trialling a polyculture approach in my beds this cooler season, with a mix of plants that go well together. Think companion planting on steroids, lol.
 

ClissAT

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Thanks for that, ClissAT. I always swore by crop rotation, and still think it's a practical solution to fighting pests, and saving the soil. However, after doing a lot of reading, I am trialling a polyculture approach in my beds this cooler season, with a mix of plants that go well together. Think companion planting on steroids, lol.


Yes Darren, I also practise polyculture. Mostly because plants don't all mature together so when some are ready to be pulled out, others are still setting seed or producing a crop.
I don't know how people can just pull up everything from a bed to plant it to the next rotation without loosing half the present crop.
Also seed saving requires the grower to leave the plants there for around 4-6mths, sometimes longer. So it is best to just remember where things were planted in each bed & not plant the same thing in the same place next time.
I often plant new things around a plant that is setting seed so as the old plant withers, the new plants fill the space.
I always add more compost, etc, as I plant new plants so the growing medium is being renewed continuously.
 

DarrenP

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I am doing the same. As some plants are reaching maturity, I am sowing different seeds around them. I keep a journal of what I plant in each bed, and when. It also helps me keep track of seeds not germinating, and needing to be resown. I have one bed where I planted some seedlings almost in rows, as it was the only bed available at the time, but I have sown other things in and around the seedlings.
 

Kasalia

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It is not always easy to do rotation in a home garden. Room being a problem or a fenceline as a permanent climbing structure. I have rotated soil to help with this. Tomatoes are my biggest problem. Now with the new raised beds will try, but being different length sizes not going to be easy.

I have 4 1m circle beds out back, one I have just planted with carrots another beetroot, but its not enough, the 3rd has capsicums which I will leave in, the 4th. A cucumber and an eggplant, both thriving. Now in a month I have to think where, for more root crops.

Its a delicate balance.
 

DarrenP

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I read somewhere that with tomatoes, refreshing the soil with plenty of aged manure and compost, as well as blood and bone, helps to lessen the dangers of any soil-borne nasties. My secret ingredient is to add some Epsom Salts into the mix as well. Apparently magnesium helps with calcium uptake in tomatoes, which prevents blossom end rot.
 

ClissAT

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I read somewhere that with tomatoes, refreshing the soil with plenty of aged manure and compost, as well as blood and bone, helps to lessen the dangers of any soil-borne nasties. My secret ingredient is to add some Epsom Salts into the mix as well. Apparently magnesium helps with calcium uptake in tomatoes, which prevents blossom end rot.


Depends on what is lacking in your soil or potting mix as to whether EP will help or hinder.
A good foliar spray is Potassium which is very easy to apply on a regular basis. Everything grown in our soils & mixes benefits from K.
 

Pauljm

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Hi all,
Sorry to raise an “old” thread but although it is reasonably simple, there are so many different opinions or options with regards to this subject it’s making my head spin! The hardest thing for me is the timing between seasons. For example at the moment coming to the end of winter I have mostly brassicas, legumes and a few tomato plants in 5 out of 11 beds. The other beds are in limbo at the moment so I am not worried about those. So all I wanted to look up was the best thing to plant after brassicas. Clissat’s awesome example above shows I should be planting root veggies. ABC gardening recommends fruiting varieties after brassicas (basically tomatoes, capsicum carrots potatoes corn).A few other sites give different examples again.i think I am just going to pick 3beds with brassicas in them and plant a root crop in one, fruit crop in another and legumes in the next then start the rotation from there. Apart from e few beetroot and failing at carrots I haven’t grown any root crops yet so I guess I will give it a go. Thoughts anyone?
 

ClissAT

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Hi Pauljm, don't be concerned at bringing up an old thread! This is how we learn, by searching and questioning.

I understand your dilemma re long lived plants hanging on through winter and messing up the rotation order! I don't have the heart to pull them out when they are still doing so well. So I end up with beds and containers with all sorts of combos planted. It gets very hard remembering what grew where for the last 2 seasons so I don't replant the same thing in the same space.

The reason this gardener in the article i posted puts root crops after brassica etc, is because those big leafy greens use a lot of nutrition out of the soil which is ideal for root crops.
Root crops need poorish soil with little nitrogen so they don't bolt or fork. They do need some N but a in very slow form.

This doesn't mean you can't use the bed for some other plants. Just be sure to amend the fertilizer bearing in mind those big Brocs etc took a lot out of the soil and left the pH in a tiz!

I am finding potatoes are doing very well for me this year in several places where the soil is very impoverished and pH down. But I think it might be a little late to plant spuds (of the cold varieties anyway). I gave mine next to no attention at all and they went ahead without me! :D
 

Kasalia

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Basically, don't plant the same thing or family in the same spot, year after year. If you have to, due to climbing frames or space, move the dirt around or at least refresh with compost and manures, from bags or otherwise.

I have an arch between two beds. Every year I plant climbing beans, then sweet peas alternatively. I just move a bucket of soil and refill from a compost bag, adding a bit of blood and bone and chook manure. Never had a problem.

Tomatoes, potatoes, capsicum, eggplants the nightshade family is usually your biggest problem for disease, therefore avoid same place if posible, or change the soil.
Brassicas are hungry feeders, so often they start the cycle in a well fed bed.
Green leafy things and flowers usually can go anywhere.
Legumes put nitogen into the soil which corn, lettuce,tomatoes,cabbage love.
Carrots don't like too much fertilizer or its all leaves, they do like a well dug soil so they don't fork. So grow after anything that was deep rooting.

Hope this helps a bit till you get a system going. We all do our own thing.
 

Pauljm

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Hi and thanks for that Clissat. Yeah I figured I would be doing some soil testing and tweaking before replanting. All that did though was provide me with another issue- no where near enough compost!
Thanks again...Paul
 

Tassie Daz

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Hi ClissAT, I finally read your post and frankly my planting regime is no where near that complicated. Im sure you sow and reap enough for a small country but our needs are way smaller. I also take into account our travelling so while we plant for our needs we also leave huge chunks of the year to go away.
That said Im conscious of the need to vary crops so Brassiccas, tomatoes, vine plants, and tuber plants are continually moved from bed to bed so as not to build up pests in one spot. Whether what I do is right or not I dont know but its working for us. BTW, thanks for all your info. Ill be interested to implement some of it should our needs ramp up.
 

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Thanks for that, ClissAT. I always swore by crop rotation, and still think it's a practical solution to fighting pests, and saving the soil. However, after doing a lot of reading, I am trialling a polyculture approach in my beds this cooler season, with a mix of plants that go well together. Think companion planting on steroids, lol.
this interests me a lot. I have a garden with narrow, 2ft deep, raised beds constructed from outside cutting of logs. the height can be 8 " to 12 inches and placed on open ground with lots of stones for terrific drainage (already in place in an old chicken coop). Because it is just me, i use a square foot method of planting for succession planting plus an awareness of companion plants good and bad. I will be putting in indeterminate tomatoes in front of a trellis against a south facing brick wall. I have black sesame seeds that would be perfect against this wall so thinking of interplanting between the tomatoes, each of these utilising one square foot. and planting things like basil, parsley, anything that doesnt interfere with any of the other plants, etc in the front. Parsley is one deep root so I dont think it will interfere with tomatoes or the bushes. SqFt method actually allows a more crowded space for everything and it is pretty easy to tuck in another plant after harvesting that matches rotation planting and companion planting. BTW this bed is about 10 ft long Does anyone in a similar climate have any ideas about this? I cant find anything reliable about interplanting with sesame other than the culture for all plants mentioned would be very similar. with a square trench for watering each tomato I doubt I would worry about over watering the sesame.
 

ClissAT

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To be perfectly honest I nolonger practice full bed crop rotation either.
I find some plants are ready to pull out while others are still fruiting well enough.
So everything gets out of sync.
But for those who like to clear the beds every season, its the way to go for sure.
Tried and tested.
When I am ready to remove a plant I will replace it with one that would normally rotate after it in a full bed rotation situation except I am just doing one plant at a time.
Also these days that I am gardening in containers up at waist height, its only one or two plants that get replaced anyway.
Plus I seed save, so oft times the plant needs to stay in place til it is quite dead.
All of the previous means crop rotation is not a thing I practice much anymore.
 
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Charlie’swife

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I have just joined this forum, been watching Mark self sufficient on YouTube and taking notes, love it. I have this post very informative as l have just started growing fruit and veggies after purchasing 5 acres 2 years ago. I can see lm going to learn a lot of helpful information.
 

ClissAT

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At Hervey bay you should be able to do the whole year round garden experience!
Great country!
Get the biggest compost setup going that you can build and you won't be disappointed.
 

Charlie’swife

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At Hervey bay you should be able to do the whole year round garden experience!
Great country!
Get the biggest compost setup going that you can build and you won't be disappointed.
It is lovely living here, during January and February its to hot to plant so we let the soil sit until March then start planting.
 

ReneeKRN7

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I have just joined this forum, been watching Mark self sufficient on YouTube and taking notes, love it. I have this post very informative as l have just started growing fruit and veggies after purchasing 5 acres 2 years ago. I can see lm going to learn a lot of helpful information.
Ditto!
 
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