Crop Rotation

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Crop Rotation Definition

The practice of growing different crops after each other in the same area mainly to preserve the productive capacity of the soil.

Different plants have different needs that have to be satisfied by the soil in order to get healthy vegetables. If the same type of crop is grown on the same area of soil year after year, the soil will be depleted of certain nutrients, and the plants will suffer and be weak.

Crop Rotation Benefits

  • Maintains and improves soil fertility
  • Prevents build up of pests, weeds and soil diseases
  • Reduces the need for adding fertilizers
  • There is no need to let ares lie fallow
  • The spreading of pests is slowed down
  • Better yield
  • More diverse garden work routine
  • Increased biological activity

Some plants even add nutrients to the soil, like for instance nitrogen. The survival of pests and diseases is less likely when the host is suddenly gone off to another area, and the bad guys are left behind. Brassicas are more likely to get attacked by clubroot and potatoes by nematodes, when the same patch of soil is used year after year for the same type of vegetable.

Disadvantages of Crop Rotation

  • More planning at the desk means less time in the garden
  • Areas with shade moves to a new place each year
  • Trellises and supports have to be moved each year

You do have to put in more work though, because a log should be kept of what went where, since it can be hard to remember it all. That the garden is more alive and dynamic because of crop rotation means that plant support structures will be on the move too, which again means more work.

Crop Rotation Chart

This is an example of 4 year crop rotation plan. Year 5 is only included to illustrate that the cycle is repeated after 4 years since year 1 and year 5 is the same:

Crop Rotation Chart

Vegetable Crop Rotation

These are common vegetables that would be interesting to grow in a kitchen garden. There are different vegetables in each group except for potatoes, which is one large homogeneous group.

  • Potatoes
  • Roots: Beetroot, carrot, chard, onion, parsnip, salsify
  • Miscellaneous: Basil, celery, chives, cucumber, leek, lettuce, maize, parsley, pumpkin, spinach, tomato, zucchini
  • Legumes and brassicas: Bean, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, pea, radish, rucola

Overall the garden is more alive with crop rotation, when things are constantly moving around. Movement means life.

Sources:

  1. Merriam-Webster.com
  2. The Self-Sufficient Gardener – John Seymour
  3. Agriinfo.in
  4. Wikipedia.org
  5. www.wiso.boku.ac.at
  6. TutorVista.com
  7. MeritNation.com
  8. eHow.com

 

Weatherproofing the Chicken Coop

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My finished chicken coop looked really nice when painted and set up in the back of my previous garden back in 2010.

In order to save time and paint I only painted the coop on the outside, and left the wood untreated on the inside, which should also provide a more natural environment for the hens.

In the meantime I have moved to a new property twice, stubbornly taking my precious chicken coop project with me. It’s much easier to move when all the plywood sheets are removed. Again, it’s easier to see the raw wood on the inside.

I assumed that the climate inside the coop would be mild enough to keep the untreated wood in good condition, but this was not at all the case. In fact, the frame started to rot, especially around the window.

On top of that I have removed three new wasps’ nests in the making. I think they absolute loved the mild climate and fresh wood inside the chicken coop roof… sigh…

Now that the coop was dismantled anyway due to moving between houses it was easy to go over the frame with rough sandpaper and soak the frame and sheets in primer. Fortunately there was much more paint left in the bucket so after many long nights during the winter the coop is now in great condition on the inside too.

Hopefully the degeneration of the wood has stopped, and the wasps will dislike the paint – it’s not that practical to have a wasp’s nest inside the coop ;-)

As a new addition an extra perch was added at the same height as the original one, since the Chicken Department Manager (a.k.a. my girlfriend) is worried that we can’t fit three fat chickens on one perch. The new one is placed over the door so maybe we’ll need an extra tray on the floor for collecting, um, composting materials ;-)

It’s still surprisingly cold here so we’re waiting for the soil to defrost in order to build the chicken run. We need to drive several poles into the ground but it’s a bit difficult when it’s all frozen… (something about hot weather in Greenland, greenhouse effect, North Atlantic Oscillation yada yada it’s still frekkin’ cold)

But beautiful it is:

Crop Rotation Plan

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This picture was taken a week ago, and everything looks quiet and peaceful in the kitchen garden. Only footprints of wild animals passing by in the snow indicates that there is some activity going on although everything is frozen rock solid.

There is not much to do in the garden at the moment besides cleaning up, if this wasn’t done already before the snow and frost arrived, but don’t be fooled – kitchen gardening activities need to be running full steam indoors when the outdoor activities have ended for the season.

Continuing the work I wrote about in my most recent blog post I’m adding more details to my garden plan and introducing crop rotation. Below is my plan with added colors – brown, red, orange and yellow to symbolize a 4 year crop rotation plan. The purpose of crop rotation is to minimize disease build up in the soil, and to replenish it and keep it healthy. If you grow the same type of vegetable in the same spot year after year, soon the plants will starve since particular nutrients will get used up. Keep the soil healthy and you’ll get healthy plants. It really is that simple.

Blue and purple colors indicate beds that will be left out of the rotation plan. Blue is a bed full of established rhubarbs, that I forgot were in that particular bed, and I want them to stay there. Purple are beds that are a bit cut off from the rest of the garden, and I’ll use them for fruit bushes, like black currant, blueberries, red currant etc.

The total bed size of each crop group is approximately the same, and bed number 13 was added to the yellow group to get a normal sized group, instead of using the bed for fruit bushes like bed number 15 and 16.

Before I group the plants I need to decide what I want to grow. This is the list for 2013, a list that I have made addition to each year since I started kitchen gardening (and I even forgot strawberries ;-) ) :

Index English name Latin name Variety
1 Basil Ocimum basilicum Thai Magic
2 Bean Vicia faba Broad, Hangdown grünkernig
3 Bean Phaseolus vulgaris Bush, Yellow, Helios
4 Bean Phaseolus vulgaris Runner, Neckarkönigin
5 Bean Phaseolus vulgaris Runner, Preisgewinner
6 Beetroot, long Beta vulgaris Forono
7 Beetroot, round Beta vulgaris Ägyptische plattrunde
8 Broccoli Brassica oleracea Calabrese
9 Cabbage Capitata var. alba L. White, Türkis
10 Carrot Daucus carota ssp. sativus Summer, Nantaise 2
11 Carrot Daucus carota ssp. sativus Summer, Nantes 2
12 Carrot Daucus carota ssp. sativus Winter, Rodelika
13 Cauliflower Brassica oleracea White Rock
14 Celery Apium graveolens var. dulce Ortho
15 Chard Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla Green, Glatte Silber, Silverbeet
16 Chard Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla Green, Groene Gewone
17 Chard Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla Red, Rhubarb Chard
18 Chives Allium schoenoprasum Staro
19 Cucumber Cucumis sativus Tanja
20 Kale Brassica oleracea Acephala Westländer Winter
21 Leek Allium porrum Blaugrüner Winter
22 Leek Allium porrum Summer, Hilari
23 Lettuce Lactuca sativa Leaf
24 Lettuce Lactuca sativa Leaf, Till
25 Maize Zea mays subsp. mays L. Golden Bantam
26 Onion Allium cepa Kepa, Sturon
27 Onion Allium cepa Red, Robelja
28 Parsley Petroselinum crispum
29 Parsnip Pastinaca sativa Halblange Weise
30 Pea Pisum sativum Margert
31 Potato Solanum tuberosum Sava
32 Pumpkin Cucurbita maxima Hokaido, orange, Red Kuri
33 Radish Raphanus sativus Cherry Belle
34 Rucola Eruca sativa
35 Salsify Scorzonera hispanica
36 Spinach Spinacia oleracea Butterfly
37 Tomato Solanum lycopersicum Black Cherry
38 Zucchini Cucurbita Pepo

I have cucumbers and tomatoes out in the open this year, as opposed to growing them in self-watering boxes near the house. Well, I might sneak in a comparison experiment to see what works best.

All of the vegetables on the list is then divided into these four groups:

  1. Potatoes
  2. Roots
  3. Miscellaneous
  4. Legumes and brassicas

Wikipedia can be used to find out if a crop is in group 4 or not.

The plan reveals that it’s actually only a few months of the year where your hands are clean and not full of dirt, but this period is used for drooling all over the new seed catalog, if you’re not at the local nursery or DIY store looking at new sweet tools.