I am trying to work out my crop rotation and I need a little help with what goes where, and what beongs in which groups.... so I know
Brasicca
Broccoli
Cabbage
Roots
Carrots
Parsnips
Potato Family
Potatoes (duh)
Tomatoes
Legumes
Peas
Beans
misc (things that can squeeze in anywhere)
courgettes
pumpkins
I know a few more too but it would help me (and others I am sure) if people could add to this list.
Is rocket a brassica?because I got some in a packet of mixed lettuce and I thought I could squeeze lettuce in anywhere?
What about Peppers, chillis and aubergines in my ploy-tunnel?
And Basil?
So many questions..... help me
Ann Pan
"Some days you're the dog,
some days you're the lamp-post"
I've got an excel spreadsheet working my bits out, Ann....
But here's sort of how mine are working out... with their companion plants too.
Legumes
Peas
Beans
Broad Beans
Onions
Spring Onions
Leeks
The last 3 are because they're good companions for this group & I'm doing the upside L frames for them....
Oooo good post! I'll be keeping a close check one this one.
I'm being neo-grower-geek-girl and using this little tool, http://www.growveg.com/Default.aspx such an organising, list-writing, diagram drawing fool!
"It's breaking the circle.
Going to work, to get money, to translate into things, which you use up, which means you go to work again, etc, etc.
The Norm.
What we should be doing is working at the job of life itself."
- Tom Good, The Good Life.
Don't worry about the rocket, Ann. I don't know if they're brassicas or not but they're so quick growing it doesn't matter. Same applies to radishes, which are brassicas. The problem with clubroot applies to the long-growing brassicas, so don't worry about salady types.
Maggie
Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin
I'm going for a 4 bed rotation - Onion & Friends, Root Veg (inc. pots), Legumes and Brassicas. I also have a spreadsheet sorting what's happening next for each bed. I plan to put courgettes and squash straight in to the manure heap.
Alls I need now is 4 beds and a manure heap!
"If you want to catch a loon, you have to think like a loon"
Mine is a four year rotation, with six beds in each block. I keep a note of what goes in which bed so even try not to put the same thing in a bed where it has been for eight years.
It goes like this:
Year ONE: Manure then potatoes, (which includes toms, in a moveable greenhouse that sits over two beds) then green manure
Year TWO: Dig in green manure, then lime, then peas/beans then brassicas (cabbage, cauli, brussels, broccoli, swede, turnips),
Year THREE: Miscellaneous (this includes courgettes, salad leaves, annual herbs, chard, celery, spinach & owt else I fancy 'having a go at')
Year Four: Roots (beetroot, carrots, onions, garlic, leeks)
Now this only works because I have the luxury of a nursery bed to start my brassicas off. But it does mean the brassicas have the advantage of the nitrogen fixed by the legumes & the spuds get the 'muck' which would make the roots (who are furthest from it) fork.
MuddyWitch wrote:Mine is a four year rotation, with six beds in each block. I keep a note of what goes in which bed so even try not to put the same thing in a bed where it has been for eight years.
It goes like this:
Year ONE: Manure then potatoes, (which includes toms, in a moveable greenhouse that sits over two beds) then green manure
Year TWO: Dig in green manure, then lime, then peas/beans then brassicas (cabbage, cauli, brussels, broccoli, swede, turnips),
Year THREE: Miscellaneous (this includes courgettes, salad leaves, annual herbs, chard, celery, spinach & owt else I fancy 'having a go at')
Year Four: Roots (beetroot, carrots, onions, garlic, leeks)
Now this only works because I have the luxury of a nursery bed to start my brassicas off. But it does mean the brassicas have the advantage of the nitrogen fixed by the legumes & the spuds get the 'muck' which would make the roots (who are furthest from it) fork.
MW
i like this, it is well thought out
Jeremy Daniel Meadows. (Jed).
Those who walk in truth and love grow in honour and strength
There are thirty beds in total with the perminant crops & the nursery beds, then there the poly tunnel & the green house. It really is only possible because I am at home, if I had to work it would be too much...but now we're about to expand!
I was just thinking of something else that I do with leeks (yes I know this isn't my 'leeks galore' thread where we were discussing it but this is pertinent to crop rotation).
I sow my leeks seedlings then when I transplant them they go in the space where the onions grew and came out only a few weeks to a month beforehand. This is due to space constraints yet common sense tells me this shouldn't really be right, and I ought to fertilise before transplanting but I've never bothered doing that either. Yet I grow great leeks!
So what I'm wondering is when you get to plant your brassicas - is it kind of late summer by the time the peas and beans are gone?
In sort yes, but some of my peas are mange tout, so they're usually done by late June & the broad beans are done by then too.
As I said I'm really lucky to have the space for a nursery bed for the Winter brassicas, but the Summer (White, for cole slaw) cabbages go in the misc. bed.
Muddywitch - that is the same amount of beds I am aiming for, 4 groups of 6... Is your nursery bed in the same place every year? how long are crops in there for? I have space for one but I am a little confused as to where it fits in the grand scheme of things
And an open question.... what group do sweetcorn, peppers and cucumbers fit in? Trying to work out a rotation scheme for my new polytunnel too....
Ma heeds Pure burstin' by the way.
Ann Pan
"Some days you're the dog,
some days you're the lamp-post"
My nursery bed is in the same place, but that's a bit misleading cos I dig out the top soil & replace it every three or four years. It's along side the poly, but not near the main veg patch.
My poly stuff is all grown in pots or grow bags & this soil also gets replaced every year. The old stuff tops up my raised beds, within the rotation, depending on what has been in it.
It seems quite sad, in a way, to talk like this, cos I'm gradually dismantalling all this as we're hoping to move this year, so I only have about 14 beds planted or going to be planted now
But by next year I should have 5 acres to play with....
and I thought I could squeeze lettuce in anywhere?
(thanks)
but this is pertinent to crop rotation). 
