[jog]

Hi All

Can someone give me advice on a potato free rotation.  I only have two small raised beds (approx 3m x 1.5m each) i dont have room to grow pots so will be trying potato sacks this year.

i wish to grow;
1) carrots, parsnips
2) broad and french beans
3) swede
4) leeks, garlic and onions

At what point do i manure the soil? Have i got the beds in the right order?

Also this seems like a lot of swede for 2 people can i put one of the other vegetables in the same bed?

Any suggestions gratefully received.     

[Goosegirl]

Carrots, parsnips, leeks, garlic and onions I treat as root veg - all in one raised bed. Broad beans and French beans are in another bed (legumes). Swedes are of the Brassica family, so that's another bed. What I would do with only two beds is to divide one bed into two sections - one small and one larger - put carrots and parsnips in the larger one - don't use manure or they will fork. Put your swedes in the smaller section - dig in manure / compost and feed well as for brassicas. Dig in manure / compost for the other bed and plant your leeks, garlic, onions and beans in this. It's like trying to get a quart into a pint pot but if you have your beans on the outer edges, your leeks, garlic, onions could go in the centre as the beans shouldn't shade them from growing and they will have finished before the leeks etc get into autumn mode. Hope this helps..!

[mumofstig]

mark each bed into half and use the 4halves as your plan.
If you don't need that many swede, how about a courgette in thet bed as well.
The only crops not to manure are, as Goosegirl said, the carrots and parsnips.

It would probably be easier to devide 1  bed, half for the carrots etc & half for swede, then you can cover the whole bed each year with enviromesh to keep the carrot fly and cabbage white butterfly off them all

so you get,
 Bed 1    carrots/snips and swede (and courgette and lettuce or chard or spinach ?)
and
Bed 2     beans   and onion family.

Then next year change beds, then the third year change beds again, but this time put the swede where the carrots were in the first year, and the beans where the onions were.     

[blackbob]

mark each bed into half and use the 4halves as your plan.
If you don't need that many swede, how about a courgette in thet bed as well.
The only crops not to manure are, as Goosegirl said, the carrots and parsnips.

It would probably be easier to devide 1  bed, half for the carrots etc & half for swede, then you can cover the whole bed each year with enviromesh to keep the carrot fly and cabbage white butterfly off them all

so you get,
 Bed 1    carrots/snips and swede (and courgette and lettuce or chard or spinach ?)
and
Bed 2     beans   and onion family.

Then next year change beds, then the third year change beds again, but this time put the swede where the carrots were in the first year, and the beans where the onions were.     

ive never worried about crop rotation too much.yes it is good to switch crops to utilise available nutrients.
but if you have no P&D in a bed dont worry if you cant rotate.
the laws of horticulture are being re-written every year,do what you thinks best and learn from your mistakes.
we all have failures of certain things even after 35 years of growing.it just makes me more determined to beat the problem the following year,this is meant to be a fun and enjoyable hobby. dont let the science confuse something that is afterall very simple.

[solway cropper]

blackbob's right. In such a small space it's a bit pointless worrying about crop rotation which is really for the monoculture approach of commercial growing. If you use block planting or square foot gardening things will work themselves out. I even read somewhere that the main thing that causes twisted/forked roots in parsnips and carrots is stones and obstructions in the soil and NOT over manuring.

[jog]

Thank you all.  I will cease to worry too much 

Mumofstig good thinking on keeping the carrot/snips and swede in the same bed with environmesh, i do get an invasion of cabbage whites each year (which so far had nothing to feast on) and i had a mild case of carrot root last year as well.  i will definately be doing this. 

thanks again. everyboby's help is much appreciated