Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: digidark on December 04, 2009, 15:12
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I know that it is not advisable to grow the same crop in the same place twice. I never seem to get a straight answer when I ask the older members of our association, (Older members, that's a joke cos I can remember when the Dead Sea only just got sick) is that each season or each planting. I do operate a three plot seasonal rotation but and I think like many others am confused. Basically, can I plant the same crop more than once in the same area, during the current season or not.
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If you have problems, then don't.
If you don't have problems, then do.
The reason that they haven't given you a definitive answer, is that there isn't one. Either decide to start the year on a date and grow ALL of that type in that bed for a year, or just never follow one crop with one from the same family.
If you have bad clubroot for example, I'd suggest not planting any more brassicas in there and shifting the next batch into the next bed.
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Welcome to the site, feel free to pop back into the welcome forum to introduce yourself :lol:
http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/crop-rotation/index.php
This is a link to various information on this site about rotating your crops.
For crops which you grow every year (as opposed to permanently), crop rotation means growing a crop in a different part of the plot each season, so that you don't end up in the same place more often than every 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 years - according to space and preference.
The rationale behind rotation is to prevent a build-up of pests and diseases in the same place, also to ensure that the soil does not get too depleted by plants constantly using the same range of nutrients - if you rotate plant families, you also rotate the needs of the soil.
Some people will have great crops by not rotating, e.g. beans, and some people argue that the size of a small allotment isn't big enough to prevent pests and diseases being transferred from one area to another, but if only for the soil nutrients reason I personally do advocate rotation.
P.S. You've learnt the hard way that if you ask 3 gardeners a question you'll get 5 different answers ;)
Edit: sorry, just realised I haven't actually answered your particular question. I think within the same summer season is OK (unless you've had pests or diseases on the first crop) but people tend to advise not growing in both winter and summer seasons, if I recall correctly e.g. brassicas. But I think people will definitely disagree more on this particular point.
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I have read to ONLY grow the crop in one place UNTIL you have a problem, then you are guaranteed clean ground to move it to. I don' practice that, but it does cause me to cut myself some slack when planting a follow-on crop of Brassicas to extend from Spring through Summer and into Winter. Brassicas are my most space-requiring crop (Spuds are in a differnt plot and rotated with Strawberries, Sweep peas and Gladioli, so not the same space problem) but I need twice as much space for Brassicas as the other zones in my rotation Beans, Roots and Onions
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Basically, can I plant the same crop more than once in the same area, during the current season or not.
Yes and no (here we go again) I would and have planted lettuce in the same space twice in one season, but there are general no, no's. Brassicas are very hungry beast so they deplete alot of food from the area and then you have the clubroot and other pest problem, for instance cabbage root fly if they have just been laid when you take one crop out and plant the next the risk will be higher of attack. In short use common sense, look at what you intend to grow in the same spot then ask why. Lift your new spuds and put a row of leeks in, you can normaly follow one crop with another with different demands as pointed out by Yorkie.
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I'm going to have a look at using some project management software for organising my plantings next year. It uses bar-graps going horizontally to do time and the vertical depth of the bar torepresent number of pepole working on a project at a given time... should be adaptable to use the vertical dimension for area of crop...... might need som tricks to represant interleaving of plantings.... ie when early potatoes or overwintering onions are coming through harvest, don't just start at one end of the row, lift a few in patches in the middle in late May/early June and plant out some courgettes or squashes. As they grow harvest the other crop to give them room.
chrisc
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Can you make a time-lapse movie for the rest of please ChrisCross? :)
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I thought the idea of growing things was to leave the world of hi-tech and get back closer to the natural world.
All to ones own I suppose.
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I thought the idea of growing things was to leave the world of hi-tech and get back closer to the natural world.
All to ones own I suppose.
Maybe its the opposite of offsetting your carbon emmision, by planting loads of plants that reduce carbon you negate that by indcreasing it with greenhouse gases using modern technology. LOL only joking.
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Can you make a time-lapse movie for the rest of please ChrisCross? :)
Do you think he's some sort of manglement type? ;)
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I think it would be fun to see the potatoes being harvested from the middle of the row outwards and the Squashes chasing the potato harvesting-person to the end of the row - rather like Benny Hill perhaps?!
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My previous experience of using project management software suggests that the crops will probably be 2 months late
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I prefer project management hardware.....a blooming big spade usually does the job :)
As for crop rotation there's a theory that it's a bit pointless in most small plots as the pests and diseases are fairly mobile. If you mix your plantings and shuffle them around it seems to work. By that I mean something like a row of carrots next to a row of turnips next to lettuce, etc. If you plant in clumps rather than rows you can just move the clumps around a bit next time if it bothers you.
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I prefer project management hardware.....a * big spade usually does the job :)
As for crop rotation there's a theory that it's a bit pointless in most small plots as the pests and diseases are fairly mobile. If you mix your plantings and shuffle them around it seems to work. By that I mean something like a row of carrots next to a row of turnips next to lettuce, etc. If you plant in clumps rather than rows you can just move the clumps around a bit next time if it bothers you.
Id agree with the statment that the pest are mobile, but another factor worth considering is that different groups of veg use different nutrient groups from the soil, so rotation is usefull for not repeatedly draining the same nutrients over and over, year in year out.
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Can you make a time-lapse movie for the rest of please ChrisCross? :)
I can't see video of me messing around with software ever being a hit on Youtube.....
To answer other questions, I'm a software QA engineer, if I leave high-tech behind my body stops functioning.... :D
chrisc
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"I can't see video of me messing around with software ever being a hit on Youtube....."
Sorry, what I was after was the end result - seeing the Courgettes coming up in the middle of the Onion bed - high productivity - then the rest of us can just do it from the time-lapse video, instead of having to become experts at High Tech :)
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Ahh... I see....:D....
Well if I get a chance then.....
chrisc
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I think a vegetable patch time lapse video is an idea project for a techie :)
Now then ... where's that special outdoor time lapse camera that I saw on a blog more than six months ago :( and the standard letter template for Santa? :) Roll on A.I. ...
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In the absence of A.I. its Google to the rescue ...
http://www.brinno.com/html/product02a.html
a snip at US$ 140
and here's your Santa Templates
http://www.squidoo.com/santa-letter-template
US$ 14.99 for unlimited use for a whole year :)