This past summer, I put in a new vegetable bed which was the home to over 100 tomato plants. My other vegetable bed is smaller and only had about 50 plants -- eggplants, peppers, zuchs and squash.
Do I definitely have to rotate the crops? I didn't notice any types of diseases, although I'm new at gardening so maybe there were some and I didn't know about it. One thing I did notice was at the very end of the season, the squash leaves started to get smallish spots on them and some of the mater leaves weren't looking very good either, although I can't give an exact description from memory at this point.
On another thread, I thought Farmer said that small gardens don't necessary need to be rotated and I didn't know how "small" of a garden bed that meant.
Rotation question
I have 3 gardens but my most productive is my small one out behind the house. I rotate and never plant toamtoes and their relatives in the same spot every year so I plant them on the outside row on one side one year and the next year the opposite outside row.
I did learn the hard way last fall not to follow tomatoes w/ turnip. Also you can follow beans and peas w/ any other crop. I tried the Three Sistres planting last year and didn't get very good results.
Although I'm not a newbee gardener,I a, a newbee "serious" gardener.
My two favorite refrence books are"Great Garden Companions"by Sally Jean Cunningham and"Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte both can be purcahsed relatative inexpensive thur amazon.com
P
Bigred,
What happened when you followed tomatoes with turnips?
If you roto-till your garden, there's no real reason to rotate crops.If it's a larger garden, and is only being plowed, then crop rotation is a good idea.
TY Eggs, but here is my next question... I have a roto tiller but can't use it safely in my beds because of the amount of small rocks. Even if I shielded my eyes, the tocks would surely dullen the blades quickly. I turn my beds over manually with a spade and pull up the rocks each year....
Unless you're churning up straight gravel, I don't know why you can't till it. Tillers are tough, and you don't need to keep them sharp like a lawn mower blade.
We bought a used Troy Built tiller from a person that had lots of fist-sized & smaller rocks. It absolutely would not go in the ground. When I went to pick it up, I looked at their "soil" & wondered to myself why anyone would even try to plant in that stuff. We only have a rock here & there, but boy does that thing jump when it hits one just right!
As far as rotating goes, I'm having trouble doing that too. We have 5 acres & plant for commercial sales. Our garden has some sandy spots & then runs up to very black, nearly gumbo soil. So some things just do better in the type of soil they like. Example, the watermelons like it sandier, & beans, cole crops like the heavy black stuff. I try to move things around, but it is a real chore. Not much disease or insect problems here either. I think if you keep the fertility up & old plant material taken care of the need to rotate isn't as important.
If you had the room, the best way to rotate is to plant a legume in a part of the garden & plow that down in late summer. If you did this every year, it automatically rotates things & adds fertility also.
In the days before the high end farming, that's the way farms were farmed. Our family farm was around 90 acres.
Our crops were 10 to 15 acres of oats with alfalfa seeded with it. This field was corn the year before. 30 or so acres of corn. The remaining was alfalfa. Each year enough alfalfa was plowed up to replace the acres going into oats. So it ended up, 1 year in oats, 3 years in corn, 3 or 4 years in alfalfa. My dad raised 5 kids on this farm without buying any feed for our milk cows & pigs. milk check every 2 weeks bought the food & paid bills. Pigs provided for new capitol purchases.
I don't remember crop failures other than when we had a dry summer, not often. Always good crops without all the chemicals used now days.
Oh, I'm ramblin again,
Here's our garden,
Bernie
lafko - rotation is definitely to your garden's advantage. A three-year pattern is best. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and deplete the nutrients from a plot. Of course, amending the plot with compost before replanting will help, but there are many other factors such as accumulated micro-organisms that we can't measure. Beans & peas (legumes) take nitrogen/ from the air and store it for later use, but beans shouldn't follow beans because too much nitrogen leads to lush foliage but little else. The books Bigred mentioned are excellent. Some plants just are persnickety companions and these books will help point them out. One year I planted lettuce for a fall crop where I had harvested kohlrabi. The pitiful little seedlings never did develop into harvest size. Yuska
I will second Bernie on this one. The major reason for rotation is disease control. Good sanitation and clean seeds and plants can pretty much control that problem. When possible I do follow a rotation plan, but in a small garden it is just not possible. I do rotate my main fields, corn, watermelon, peas. use a winter crop of rye and leave fallow for a year in between crops. But the primary purpose is to confuse the insects, fungi and similar problems which can accumulate. Tomatoes are the lightest of feeders and will grow in the poorest plot, but in this area they fall prey to many diseases. I know folks who have grown tomatoes in the same plot for 30 years with no problems, but when one of these diseases is introduced, usually through contaminated plants, it spreads like wildfire. The old folks here use to grow tomatoes for market, now thanks to disease only the most disease resistant plant will grow. I planted in a field that had been in pasture for 30 years and still could not avoid Spotted Wilt, which is thrip vectored.
Bernie, you had an ideal life (to me!) growing up. Your Dad was one smart cookie and no doubt he enjoyed living and doing what he did.
lafko, this very topic came up recently in another thread and rather than retype my opinion/input it's easier to just show the link. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/677076/
Eggs___, just curious as to your perspective regarding plowing vs tilling and why you feel if you till then there is no need to rotate. Thanks in advance for elaborating.
Shoe.
Okay, thanks everyone. But just a note on my area in good old new England. It is ROCKY. I was looking over the beds earlier today to check if any weeds were sneaking in there and it was discouraging to see the rocks in there. Every time I put a spade or shovel to make a new hole, I make sure I have both tools with me because there is an excellent chance that I'll be digging up a big rock. Sometimes, the rocks are so big that I can't make a hole because I'll hit rock several feet around the initial location. I've gotten some really neat rocks and I feel like I'm digging for gold because I never know what I'll turn up. They built this house 3 years ago and cleared out the woods and large rocks and brought in poor fill. They said it was "clean fill" but unless that means small stones and up to basketball size and bigger, then it's a new one on me. I wouldn't use my roto tiller here without a helmet, excellent eyewear and I'd still be afraid my body would take a hit. It's the area too, and this part of New England. My neighbor dug up enough rocks this past summer to enclose a large herb garden his DD put in this summer. Maybe in a few more years as I keep digging out more I'll eventually be able to use it again.
As for all this info, it looks like I'm going to rotate the crops after all. Maybe I can convince DH to let me have another veggie bed, but for now, he's feeling like I'm taking over the yard and his "precious grass" so maybe he'll change his mind in 08 after he gets sick of mowing.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!
In weaker, or more porous soils, particularly in gardens that do not get a really hard winter freeze, there is always the possibility/likelihood that last year's diseases will be just waiting for a new crop of the same thing you planted last year. In general, however, the heavier or more naturally compacted your garden soil, the less chance that your new spring crop will be adversely affected by last year's diseases. But even a heavy clay soil will benefit by a shovel and a bit of elbow grease, to turn over last year's dirt.
Even in a 'heavy soil' garden, (one with a heavy clay component), tilling would be advisable, or at least turning over the soil with a spade, but is not absolutely necessary.
The fact that you mentioned that last year's squash plants began to show yellow leaves at the end of the season suggests that you had a very productive squash season. You should not be particularly vexed by a few yellow squash leaves at the end of the growing season. Your plants look up at the sun, just as you do. And they know, better than you and me, when it is time to begin giving up the ghost.
Fact is, your growing season will never be dictated by you. It will be dictated by the natural cycle of the plant you are trying to grow.
Berie,
So that is what the Minnesota prairie looks like!
I too have differentt soils in my gardens. The higher end is lighter color with more clay in the clay/loam. The center is very crumbly and darker. The lower end is almost black and very fertile......all this in 45 feet.
My dad too raised 5 on 160 acres plus 120 to 180 acres rented.
Bernie, You might enjoy the Ten Acres Enough book in the tread below....Small Farms Library Selection
I am raising watermelons in the same beds without much rotation. I used to have wilt and mature vine decline problems very badly oftentimes. I now mix in Root Shield [in the starter mix] from Johnny's Seeds and have done very well. I also add what is left over as a drench later.
This message was edited Dec 22, 2006 7:03 PM
Horseshoe,
To put it simply, the combination of roto-tilling and then raking out a smaller garden, blends the soil and it's remaining nutrients over a much wider area than plowing or simply turning the soil over with a spade does. Doing so, keeps a better nutrient balance across the majority of the garden. Tilling has it's drawbacks, though. Soil needs structure, in addition to nutrients, to be effective. Tilling (rather, over-tilling) can break down that structure. The organisms (from micros to earthworms) in the soil have to start their work over again, the soil drains inefficiently, etc.
There's no absolute here. Each situation, and each garden, is different. Pay attention to the signs your plants give you, especially when dealing with disease and fungi. Know what nutrients your plants require, and feed heavily on, and be prepared to put those back into the soil the next season, either by rotation, organic matter, or other fertilizers. Test your soil often for pH, nutrients, minerals, and texture, and make adjustments accordingly.
Anyway, that's my $.02 on tilling a garden. =)
Thanks, Eggs! Although it's been quite a few years since I was considered a newbie gardener/farmer I am always interested in the perspectives of other growers. And yes, I agree totally on watching the plants, the ground we grow in, and being sure to always contribute back to the soil. ( I like to call it a "soil bank", we get to withdraw from it only if we invest in it.)
I've seen first-hand evidence that tilling messes up the soil, or as you say, "over tilling". Not only does it tear up the soil structure but also creates a hardpan area when your tiller always tills at the same depth. (I've also seen hardpan happen with plowing at the same depth as well.) No fun there!
Many soil-borne disease are considered to be "drowned" by plowing though and some are encouraged to spread and live on by tilling. Plowing will flip the soil over, putting the disease spores/etc to a depth where they cannot survive; tilling will incorporate said disease into a wider area of the soil and also not bury them deep enough to take the life out of them.
Who knows at this point in time? I sure feel for FarmerDill and having to deal with years of Spotted Wilt, which hasn't been contained or killed off thru any method yet.
Thanks for getting back to me on this. I love it! Gardening/farming makes us grow, eh!
Shoe.
I forgot to mention, no tomatoes in my garden, but, as some of you know, i raise a whole bunch in the greenhouse.
This thread is 2005 crop, didn't have a thread for this year.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/557659/
By the way I had a nice ripe tomato for lunch today. Still have about 10 left to eat. Started June 15th this year.
Bernie
"By the way I had a nice ripe tomato for lunch today."
You're killing me here, Bernie!! :>)
Shoe (who just ordered another greenhouse today so I can keep up with Bernie!)
Great! What did you get ?
I may have to extend my spring vacation to drive out & see it.
I wonder if UPS would take a couple tomatoes ? I could ship you some, sucks they might freeze.
Bernie
Hah! Nope...best you enjoy them maters yourself! Besides, around here, one whiff of a fresh tomato those UPS drivers will find some way to accidentally break open the pkg!
I needed a second greenhouse mainly for over-wintering perennials and also will use it as a shade house in the summer (I lose a lot of plants to the direct sun and heat) so I broke down and bought a 30 X 96 "cold frame" from Atlas Greenhouse company. (Best prices I've found, by the way. Plus they are close by and shipping is minimal.)
Am thinking of using it for multi-purpose. "OverWintering", "Shade house" in summer, and might try saving some of it for in-ground tomatoes/etc for an early/extended crop. Will keep you informed.
As for your Spring Vacation, I'm no way on the scale that you are but you are welcome to come visit anytime! Hope our little place is not a disappointment! (Then again, you'll most likely be quizzed to no end if you show up here! :>)
Shoe
One of ours is an Atlas. It's a snow something or other. Very well built.
Bernie
laf,
sorry,I forgot I replied to this thread.
The turnip greens never got passed an 1" tall. I'm not sure if it's something in tomato that prohibited the growth.
P