The deal with crop rotation

Oh crop rotation - it is the magical mystical "Maybe I'll Do That Someday If I Have Some Free Time And Want To Torture Myself" concept that actually does more for your vegetable garden than almost any other single gardeny activity out there.

For reals. I'm not just trying to give you something else to do. Honestly, if you only do one thing for your garden - do this. 

Light feeder rotation with leafies. Plus, isn't it just fun to say, "leafies"? I think so.

It's one of the pieces of the organic gardening puzzle that, once you get the piece to fit, your ALL GO NO QUIT garden starts to really fall together.

Though these cucumbers didn't just *fall* into this basket. There was plucking involved. But that's it! Still easy.

It's also the #1 thing that organic farms and gardens have in common because it's a rule that can't be broken or ignored - unless, of course, you're OK with risking the summer's tomato harvest due to verticillium in the soil.

No risky business here.

You know - verticillium - that soil pathogen (it's actually a fungus) that turns your vulnerable heirloom tomato plants from vigorous fruit producing machines to wilted crispy noodle versions of their previously glorious selves.

Yeah, sad.

But you can avoid verticillium and so many other pathogens and insect pests by simply moving your crops around in an organized fashion. An organized fashion handily called, crop rotation.

It's OK - they don't mind moving around because they don't have to pack a bag or anything.

But it's so confusing! 
But I want to grow tomatoes every year and I only have one place that I can grow them so I don't have anywhere to rotate them!
But I really like spraying chemicals all over the garden in the hopes that it'll stop whatever awful thing from happening that's totally happening just like last year!
But I like going into the gardening season without a clue about where to plant stuff so that it'll grow well!
But I tried it before and it totally didn't do anything!

Yeah, we know.

We hear it a lot. Coming up with a plan for a garden that most folks see as Fun Leisure Play Time isn't really at the top of your Fun Times list. Understood.

Still though...

Why crop rotation is YES!
Making a crop rotation plan gives you a map for planting in every season so when you sit down with your stack of seed catalog porn in the winter, you're not just randomly flipping pages feeling all overwhelmed by WHAT SHOULD I GROW OOH THAT LOOKS GOOD I'LL HAVE ONE OF EACH!

You don't have room for one of each. You know this. I know this. The catalogs know this. And yet still...

1. It keeps cootie insects away
Rotating your crops keeps host-specific pests (say, insects that really like one of your crops better than the others) from setting up camp in your garden and waiting for you to put out the buffet in the springtime.

Why, hello jerk Cucumber Beetle. Glad to see you NOT on the cucumbers.

2. It makes for yummy soil
When you rotate your crops, you have the chance to rebuild nutrients in the soil so that you don't have one plant after the other sucking the life out of your garden without replenishing it. Instead, you can rotate in a crop that actually puts nutrients back IN to the soil for the following crop.

Corn. Sweet delicious corn. The great nutrient-sucker of the vegetable world.

3. Your favorite crops can grow better
You can plant crops this winter that counteract negative effects of this summer's crop for the benefit of next summer's crop.

Love you, Pacific Gold Mustard :)

Let's try an example so that you can see that I'm not just spinning craziness:

You like to grow heirloom tomatoes but you know that they are not verticillium resistant (that's what the "V" means on plant tags and hardly any heirloom varieties have resistances), so during the winter prior to your tomato-growing summer, you plant a brassica (mustard, broccoli, etc) since that family produces a gas in the soil that "biofumigates" verticillium. Then you plan to keep that area free of nightshade plants (of which the tomato is a member) for as many seasons as possible.

Your tomato rotation might look something like:

Winter 1: Brassica > Summer 1: Tomatoes
Winter 2: A verticillium resistant crop > Summer 2: Anything other than Solanaceae/nightshades

And if you're in the situation where you can ONLY grow your precious tomatoes in one spot year after year because of sun conditions or whathaveyou, there are other things you can do to stave off disaster like skipping a year altogether (gasp! I know.) and choosing varieties with resistance to your garden's known pathogens (this is where you look for the "V" on your tomato's plant tags), in addition to a winter rotation with a type of brassica.

Build your crop rotation plan like a pro
Keep in mind what kind of a feeders your plants are and rotate them so that the soil is replenished before planting another heavy feeder type. First, bucket your plants into into categories like Heavy Feeders (corn, tomatoes, squash), Light Feeders (root crops, herbs, lettuce) and Feeders (legumes, alfalfa). Then organize your rotation so that Heavy Feeders are followed by Feeders and then followed by Light Feeders.

I always have seconds.

Know the diseases that plague your plants and then match them with plants and strategies that counteract their nasty effects. Like that whole "tomatoes with brassicas" thing I was talking about before.

Figure out which families your plants belong to so that you can put them in the right place in the rotation. Like your tomatoes belong to the same family as potatoes, peppers and eggplant, so these guys shouldn't follow one another in a rotation.

Get help with your crop rotation
If you want to do this so badly but just can't wrap your brains around all of the details or don't have the time to work it all out - there's salvation!

Kitchen Gardeners International has a great garden planning tool that keeps track of crop families so that you don't have to. Plus - it's super fun to see your future garden come to life and you can move stuff around and design the whole garden space. Which, if you're garden dorks like we are, is pretty effing fun. It won't work out the issues with plant diseases and feeding types, but it's definitely helpful for visualization.

Georgia Organics has a list of tools and software for helping you plan your rotation - everything from seed calculators to downloadable software.

And if you'd rather get your own customized crop rotation plan built for you, we can help you out there. In our Crop Rotation Plan session we'll build a crop rotation plan with you that gives you the freedom to choose the varieties of plants you love to grow each season and a map of where to plant them for great yields, soil health and pest resistance in future seasons.

Then you can eat all of these tomatoes in one sitting. If you so desire. Though it might be messy. GLORIOUSLY MESSY.