All,
I rotate my crops across four areas of my yard. (1) Legumes >> (2) Brassicas >> (3) Curcurbits >> (4) Nightshades.
I have some crops that are spring planting (legumes, nightshades, curcurbits), and some are fall planting (brassicas, carrots, lettuce).
Do I:
-- plant the brassicas in the fall in their current bed, harvesting through February and March, overlapping with the early legumes?
-- plant the brassicas in the fall in the bed currently occupied by curcurbits, even though the curcurbits won't be done harvesting until November?
Given that I can grow food all year, and that I have this anomoly with one plant family, do I only need three beds and not four?
I have rewritten this about 10 times to try to keep it simple. I can include a diagram with that would help...
Question on succession vs rotation of crops - Zone 8-9
Happy,
I suggest you find Cricketsgarden (down in South Padre, Texas) and ask her. I believe she's a commercial grower, and could give you some sound advice. Or, Horseshoe or Farmerdill.
Please post their reply here, as I'm watching for the answer!
Linda
Happy, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about crop rotation in small plots I do rotate in fields. Not familiar with California conditions. Here (Georgia) I grow brassicas spring and fall, Harvest from September through early June. Beans( snap and lima), Southern peas, peanuts Cucurbits fill the summer slot. Usually following turnips, rutabagas, collards. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage can be followed by late plantings. English type peas (Pisum) normally occupy the same time slots as the brassicas . I plant these in November and February. Chenopods (beets, spinach) and onions also parellel the brassicas. I do try to move tomatoes, peppers, Irish potatoes and eggplants around so they are not planted in the same space in successive years. When I have a problem with disease buildup (nematodes especially) I try to rotate them with corn or sweet potatoes, both of which seem to depress nematodes.
dill
Good question; I've been wondering the same thing. I just stuck my eggplants in the former pea row, but that messes up my nightshade rotation. I had run out of room for them where I'd planned to put them, since I had more pepper plants than I'd anticipated.
I do not worry about rotation in small garden beds because it naturally rotates it self with each seasons plantings.
When one veggie produces out, it is replaced with a different one according to the season. This naturally rotates your veggie crop. As for one crop still producing when it is time to plant another= you have to decide which one is more important to you or plant it somewhere else.
good luck and happy gardening
Cricket
But what about the idea of not planting squash or tomatoes or beans in the same location for four years or so?
Very hard to avoid if you have less than an acre. The basic idea is to avoid disease buildup, but a few feet don't make much difference. In a green house operation, you have to continue production year after year. In a back side garden the best you can do is shuffle from side to side. As for depletion of nutrients, both operations depend on continuous replenishing.
I don't worry about rotations and successions though sensitive to the topic. We plant tomatoes (night shades) up to three years in the same space, rotating two of four tomato spaces out to okra each year and the other to running beans (legumes). We plant beans and southern peas wherever we can squeeze them. We rotate brassicas with other night shades (peppers and eggplants) every year as well as cucurbits because we grow brassicas Spring and Fall. So butternut squash was started two weeks ago in the spot where Spring turnips, collards and arugula had been harvested. In short, I shuffle. As Farmerdill said it's about replenishing. I'd like to say we have large areas of composting going on to replenish but space is too tight. We compost near the garden, hauling compost in and dirt out.
I'd advise not to plant brassicas with the cucurbits but suggest with beans for Fall. The rationales are that beans are somewhat drought tolerant and brassicas like a lot of water so they are going to rob your soil of moisture. The other reason would be that cucurbits are shallow rooted, as are the brassicas, and they'll be competing for the same nutrients in the same space. Brassicas need a fair share of nitrogen rich soil which will not benefit your cucurbits but beans, being legumes, could help them along.
Laurel
I don't do well with brassicas so I have somewhat given up on them except for things like arugula - and turnips. Interesting that you don't worry about rotations. I had a lot of trouble with my tomatoes a number of years ago and decided that rotating them might help. I think it may have made some difference, or it may just have been that I was growing different varieties. A friend in France told me that his neighbor has been growing tomatoes in the same spot that his family has raised them for 100+ years and they do wonderfully, but he also amends his soil with lots of manure and compost.
We amend our soil with green manure but it's been years since we've used animal manures. We used to use our horses' manure, chicken and cow from neighboring farms. We have seen where they have had to scrape the soil surfaces on European farms in Spain, Germany and France because of the many years of relying on heavy applications of animal manures. They use giant machines that scoop wide swaths of soil and send it through machinery that removes the salts and I don't know what else that builds up in manured soils.
So, what I was saying is that we grow tomatoes on the same spot every other or every third year. I move peppers and eggplants more often because of specific problems not mentioned here. The major problem with eggplant is insect related. Brassicas are grown every other year or more in the same spots and beans (legumes) are grown whenever and wherever.
Eggplant is a problem for me too. I have read recently that interplanting eggplant with tomatoes helps to discourage flea beetles, and when I was growing them that way I don't remember having the problems with flea beetles that I have now. I'm using tripods for my tomatoes now, and because of earlier plantings I didn't have room to put in the tripods for 52 tomato plants plus interplant with eggplant and peppers, but maybe I'll try that next year.
Last summer I grew my eggplant up on my balcony and had no flea beetles at all, but it's an awkward place to garden and I didn't get much yield. I think the planter was too small.
We make compost out of chicken manure, wood shavings from the coop, grass clippings, and any other garden debris, plus shredded leaves. I don't know if that would cause a buildup of salts but so far it seems to work well. I have been trying to do a four year rotation, but maybe I don't have to drive myself nuts with that. Because my garden is divided into uneven sections it's hard to fit some crops in some areas, so my flexibility is more limited than I'd like.
Yep... me too... I have four areas in my 1000 sq ft garden... and bed #2 is tight on space, nor are the sun-hours the best in that bed... so the idea of not worrying so much about rotating, but rather "shuffle" my crops is sort of liberating!
Don't know why I am so rigid, except I'm still fairly new at this and I feel dependent upon "the rules"
greenhouse_gal
I also had a problem with flee beetles on my eggplants for years.
It really didn't damaged the fruit, but the look of the eggplant . So last year I solved the problem making little bag with my broken panty hoses and inserting the eggplant on the inside. It did work.
But this year I really did solve the problem planting CAT NIP on the bottom of the eggplant. Maybe 1 or 2 flee beetles max (so far).
Look how beautiful this eggplant is ... no holes ...
The catnip grows really fast, so I remove a few branches every night to give to my cats. Two of my four kitties really go crazy over it. They get soooo funny !
Doesn't catnip spread like mad? My problem with flea beetles isn't what they do to the fruit; they damage the young leaves so badly that the plant can't even put forth fruit! It gets stunted and never produces.
huumm
my catnip is getting larger ... I planted last year too, but not near the eggplant and I had no problem.
Right now it is blooming and there are a million of bees having a buffet there.
May you be confusing with "CATMINT" ?
They're all members of the mint family and I know that at least some of them can be really invasive.
Forgot to add that your eggplant looks gorgeous!
Catmint is the same as catnip and yes it is both a mint and invasive. It takes a few years to get going and then it will be as difficult to get rid of as any other mint. As for flea beetles, I'm not sure you are thinking of the same critter Drthor. Flea beetles are the size of poppy seeds and riddle tiny holes in the leaves, not the fruit. They have been particularly bad here the past few years. They'll also get at young tomatoes and peppers but love eggplants best. We spent much time and money last summer spraying Neem and spinosad. This year I ordered Agribon row cover fabric and covered the eggplants and peppers from plant out until this past week. Voila! No beetles and no spraying. I have read about optimal times for some insects to hatch in spring. If you can make it through that period without supplying the first hatch with plants to feed on you can avoid problems later.
I hope this time period is good for us here as well. I hadn't gotten around to planting my eggplants and just did so a couple of days ago. So far no flea beetles.
Good luck, GH. I've got a record number (for us) planted so I'd like to be beetle free.
Beautiful eggplant BTW, Drthor. It's not quite caponata season for us here yet. Our first flowers are now setting.
I am positive I know about flee beetles
Ohhh Ohh about Catnip ... I will keep watching. Right now I am enjoying to not to have to cover all my eggplants with panty hoses.
I'd rather have panty hose on the eggplants than on me in this heat. lol As for the catnip, I planted a small pot of catnip years ago for our cats to enjoy. We've not had cats in several years but that catnip keeps showing up between stepping stones many feet from where it was originally planted. Keep an eye on it, Drthor.
huumm ... I did plant it last year in another place of my veggie garden and nothing like you describing happened ... I will keep my finger crossed.
My cats are having a ball and I am making flavoring water with the catnip ... yummy ....
Doesn't salt buildup come mostly from poor drainage? If nothing drains AWAY, whatver you add, even if it is only rainwater, windblown dust and compost, will eventually build up unus3ed salts to excess.
On the other hand, if there is a healthy amount of water running through your soil (and, especially, some draining AWAY), it should carry away anything soluble that you add, be it chemical fertilizer, compost, or manure.
If you add a lot of minerals often, you need a lot of runoff every year. But no runoff means eventual salinization (eventually).
Maybe the situation you descirbed was a LARGE amount of rich manure, and insufficient rainfall or irrigation and drainage AWAY.
Just my opinion.
Corey
Salts are components of fertilizers, organic or not, and commercial agriculture, as well as intensive home gardeners, rely heavily on soil nutrition. Fertilizers are frequently over used and misused. No, salts build up in agri-soil does not originate from poor drainage alone. That's a fact, not my opinion. Heavy use of animal manures will in fact result in salts build up more quickly. Is "LARGE" a measurement? How much animal manure and how much rainfall equals a balance in your opinion?
>> Fertilizers are frequently over used and misused.
No question. I can't find the original post now, but didn't it refer to some practice involving "heavy" use of manure?
>> How much animal manure and how much rainfall equals a balance in your opinion?
I can't give you a number in terms of inches of rainfall per ton per acre. But overfertilizing arid soil, or poor draining soil, seems like shooting yourself in the knee, when overfertiling well-drained weel-watered soil might be only shooting yourself in the foot. It makes it worse and slows or prevents recovery.
Balance:
More manure than is needed to maintain a medium or adequate level of soil organic matter would be "excessive".
I forget the figure, but for each different soil type there is some level of OM (say 2% or 5% soil organic matter) above which more carbon disapears very quickly. Cold, heavy clay loam can hold more OM than loamy sand in a hot climate. If you were trying to maintain the soil carbon level above that point, it would be futile because the excess would just oxidise as fast as you added it.
If manure were the only source of minerals, I would not aim for "high" levels of mineral nutirents, because that would be trying to get a high soil level from a source with low concentrations of minerals. Define "high" as adequate to maintain average yields for that crop, not absolute highest yields. And "heavy feeding" crops that need more minerals probabaly are easier to manage if there is adequate rainfull and drainage.
But assuming that one was aiming for a rate of mineral additon to the soil that was practical to get from manure with its (??) 0.5% N, more manure than needed to meet that goal would be "excessive".
Trying to fertilize arid soil heavily would be out of balance and probably lead to salinization. An area with adequate rainfall can probably be fertilized and cropped more heavily. Doesn't the rate of rainfall or irrigation limit on how intensively one can (should) fertilize?
I always considered salinization to be a long-term problem, but if you mean "dumping a 2-foot-deep layer of manure adds too much salt all at once", I'm not arguing with that!
>> Heavy use of animal manures will in fact result in salts build up more quickly.
Were you saying that manure had MORE tendency to salinize than chemical fertilizers? I would have guessed the other way, for the same number of pounds of N per acre. Might it even depend on the diet of the animals and the quality of the chemical fertilizer? I don't know.
>> No, salts build up in agri-soil does not originate from poor drainage alone. That's a fact, not my opinion.
OK, what are the other mechanisms? (Insufficient rainfall or irrigation, of course.) Adding salts faster than they can leach away is the mechanism that I understand.
Something to do with unwanted ions competing for desirable ions on ion-exchange components like clay particles? Even so, doesn't water flowing through the soil wash them away and permit them to be displaced by more desirable ions?
I don't understand how salts can build up in well-drained soil with ample rainfall and drainage. Salts are soluble. If the ground water drains away, don't excess salts drain away?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm asking what facts or mechanisms you are referring to.
Or are you referring to something dynamic, like "adding chemical fertilizer or manure FASTER THAN rainfall and drainage carry it away causes salinization UNTIL you cut back, and then it washes away within a few seasons".
Corey
If you go back to my post on June 15th regarding the reclamation of soil in European countries it is pretty self-explanatory. In addition I addressed overuse as being problematic. I base my gardening methods and comments on forty years of vegetable gardening experience. That amounts to art as well as science.
Laurel
>> In addition I addressed overuse as being problematic.
I'll go along with that. I wish I knew which was more stressful to soil: overexploitation via chemical fertilizers, or via excessive manure, (whatever counts as "excess" fpr manure).
Given the free choice and no cost objections, I would try for 3-6" of manure per year until the soil seemed as organic as it was likely to get, then 1"-3" per year afterward. Light chemical fertilization for "heavy-feeding" crops, maybe every 3rd year.
But I have no agricultural schooling and only a little experience.
As with engineering: I would aim for a middle course. Don't try to suck every last possible watt or cent or pound per acre out of it - run the system where it's "comfortable" and expect it to last longer and be better-behaived.
I would love to know anything further you can add to this, or expand on it. I'm just wondering because it was new to me. Not trying to be argumentative.
>> No, salts build up in agri-soil does not originate from poor drainage alone.
>> That's a fact, not my opinion.
>> Post #8632886
>> We have seen where they have had to scrape the soil surfaces on European farms in Spain, Germany and France because of the many years of relying on heavy applications of animal manures. They use giant machines that scoop wide swaths of soil and send it through machinery that removes the salts and I don't know what else that builds up in manured soils.
Corey
Regarding the flea beetles, if you start the eggplants in pots and keep the pots elevated (on a deck or balcony until the plants have a few sets of leaves) when you do plant them in ground, the flea beetles will do far less leaf damage. And it won't cause a setback to the larger healthier plant.
Very true. However I need more than a few sets of leaves to get ahead of the game. There is no non-chemical replacement for row covers if flea beetles are problematic.
We had a lively discussion here among fellow gardeners earlier in the day about garden and plant additives. I'd describe all of us as experienced and non-traditional in our methods. My contention is that many of us who consider ourselves "organic gardeners" or are moving in that direction are unconcerned about the amounts of organic pesticides or organic soil additives being used as long as they have an "organic" label. Perhaps this prejudice of traditional methods falls under the heading of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Do you find the flea beetles damage your large plants enough that they don't produce as they should?
I think certain plant species rebound from pest and disease problems better than others. That is assuming you get a grip on the problem. Beans and tomatoes are two examples that can recover and flourish. Eggplants don't do well when they've been set back early on. Not only is production poor but, in my experience, the fruit ranges from mediocre to inedible. I left row covers on until the plants were flowering. There's been some flea beetles but not many. They prefer younger leaves. Also, in our warmer climates they turn over a lot of generations per season. If they get going early you're going to really have a problem later regardless of the maturity of the plant. Row covers will allow you to avoid spraying early on so that your beneficial population can reproduce and keep your plants from being a food source for beetles. This decreases their numbers from the start.