Sunday, 31 January 2010

Spot the Difference

Here's the plan for this year as dictated by the rotation. The Brassicas area gets lime. The Others area gets manure and the Roots area gets some compost in with the potatoes. As each area rotates over three years they all get the treatment once every three years and the pests don't get a chance to build up.





BUT I have made the adjustments to the overall plan as detailed in the second picture to meet my own priorities for this year. I don't need such a large brassica patch and if I am determined to grow carrots. So the potatoes are being squeezed between the soft fruit and the other roots. Answer: to borrow a bit of the brassica patch for the parsnips and carrots, with the proviso that next year (when this is the roots area) potatoes will be grown here and not carrots or parsnips again.
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6 comments:

  1. Jo31 January 2010 at 20:01

    Tricky thing this crop rotation. I'm doing a four year rotation, with the potatoes having a bed of their own.

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  2. Mal's Allotment1 February 2010 at 23:15

    That's interesting Jo. Where do your carrots go? Please tell me more about your scheme.

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  3. Jo2 February 2010 at 19:58

    Bed 1 for potatoes, bed 2 for roots, bed 3 for brassicas and bed 4 for legumes, and they all follow each other round in that sequence. Remember I've only had one growing season yet though so I don't know if it will work out right or not, I took this rotation from books I've read.

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  4. Mal's Allotment2 February 2010 at 21:20

    Thanks for answering my question, Jo. Please tell me it goes: potatoes followed by legumes, followed by brassicas and then roots (and onions)? I hadn't realised how many differing opinions there are on rotations until I Googled it today. There's even a seven year rotation!

    My problem is that, with the path where it is on my plot, I could go for a 3 year rotation or a 5 year rotation. I've been turning this over in my mind today and I think I'll stick to a 3 year rotation a) because it is simple and b)because being big on spuds (for several reasons) I want to be able to grow a large area of potatoes. A five year rotation would be overly fussy from my point of view. But I can understand that a 4 years rotation suits you on your plot!

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  5. Jo3 February 2010 at 10:57

    From looking through books it would seem that a three year rotation is most common. I do have other beds for squash and sweetcorn etc. which aren't in the rotation so I'll have to do some sort of mini rotation with these also. It all gets so confusing though and I don't know if I'm over complicating things.

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  6. Anonymous3 February 2010 at 18:12

    So organised...i just tend to prepare a bit of soil and then plant on it...maybe I should put a little more thought into it????

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