Vegetable rotation for healthy production

Your vegetable rotation is critical

Growing productive vegetable crops depends on many things but vegetable rotation is key to manage disease, pest and weed levels and to optimise nutrients for healthy productive growth.

Whilst it may be easy to grow the same thing in one place yields will drop as nutrients are depleted and pests and disease levels build.

Crop rotation is used by farmers and must be part of your veg garden.

Usually the minimum is a 4 course rotation of Brassica crops -> Root crops -> Legume crops, but can be modified to suit your needs depending on the crops you chose to grow.

My preference, working within the bed system, is to have a five course crop rotation to further minimise disease build-up;

Brassica -> Roots -> Legumes -> Others -> Cucurbits

crop rotation

Care must be taken to ensure plots of similar crops in the rotation are split up by other crops in the rotation to minimise air and pest bourne disease spread. This is one of the principles behind mixed and intercropping and companion planting used in organic systems, but equally effective here.

The choice of crops through the rotation is depicted below;

vegetable rotation

For further information on vegetable rotation

For further design information and options.

For further information on companion planting

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