Rotating crops is a concept that has been around for centuries. However, do not assume that it can only be used for large gardens and farms.
If you have a small home garden, crop rotation can offer a variety of benefits. This includes everything from balancing soil nutrients to reducing the incidence of pests and diseases.
Why do your crops rotate?
Barbara Pleasant, the contributing editor at Mother Earth News, shared that field trials in the US and Europe show that potatoes that are not properly rotated with other crops can see a 40% drop in production. Most of it has to do with illness.
Diseases and pests will favor certain plants. By changing where the crops grow, you don’t have to worry as much about those diseases and pests.
So, you move the potatoes to where the tomatoes are, the tomatoes to where the potatoes are, and so on. However, you rotate whatever crops you have, no matter how big or small your garden is.
You will find that your nutrients stay balanced, the nitrogen stays balanced and the soil stays healthy.
How to rotate your crops
Introduce a different crop every year or two. You wouldn’t want to put the same crop in an area until at least two years have passed.
In one area of your garden it might look like this:
Year 1: Tomatoes
Year 2: Beans
Year 3: Cucumbers
Year 4: Tomatoes again
If you only grow a few crops and they are all in the same family, crop rotation will not be quite as important. However, even moving them to different beds can have some noticeable benefits.
