Humans tend to be creatures of habit - I know i will be. Then when I first started vegetable gardening, my instinct would be to find a spot for my tomatoes and then plant them there year after year. However, when I later learned, this was not advantageous to my garden. Diversity is what a garden needs - the systematic rotation of plants from different families. There was a technical term because of this: "crop rotation".
Crop rotation in a house vegetable garden requires planning the place of each and every planting to make sure you aren't planting a vegetable through the same category of vegetables in the same location in a three year cycle. Crop rotation is an essential part of an organic gardening strategy, helping gardeners:
* force away pests and diseases
Vegetables in identical plant family are often vunerable to the same pests and diseases; crop rotation helps protect vegetables by simply making the area less hospitable to these organisms. By introducing a vegetable in a different family, the pests and diseases die off as a result of not enough a food source.
* Guard against nutrient depletion
Vegetables in various families have different nutrient requirements. By rotating plant families, you might be less likely to deplete the soil of individual nutrients. Some vegetables (like beans and peas), actually add nitrogen to the soil. So rotating beans and peas with vegetables that want a lot of nitrogen can be a powerful technique for protecting soil fertility.
* Improve soil structure
Healthy soil contains lots of organic material that is home to a number of beneficial microbes. These microbes play an important role in maintaining good soil structure, making it simpler for vegetables to cultivate as roots have a less strenuous time penetrating the soil. Crop rotation protects these microbes by helping the soil retain its organic matter.
To reach your goals with a crop rotation program, gardeners need certainly to keep records from year to year in order to track the positioning of every planting inside the vegetable garden. Without detailed records, it could be tough to manage a crop rotation program. For many who try not to enjoy record keeping, you should use a garden planner application which handles the tracking for you and places plants when you look at the optimal location considering crop rotation requirements.
