Everything You Need to Know About Rotating Crops

Rotating crops is a concept that has been around for centuries. However, don’t assume that it can only be used for large gardens and farms.

If you have a small home garden, crop rotation can offer an array of benefits. This includes everything from balancing soil nutrients to reducing the occurrence of pests and diseases.

Why Rotate Your Crops?

Barbara Pleasant, the contributing editor over at Mother Earth News, shared that field trials in the US and Europe show that potatoes that aren’t properly rotated with other crops can see a 40% drop in production. Most of it has to do with disease.

Diseases and pests will favor certain plants. By changing up where the crops grow, you don’t have to worry as much about those diseases and pests.

So, you move the potatoes to where the tomatoes are, the tomatoes to where the potatoes are, and so on. Though, you rotate whatever crops you have, regardless of how large or small your garden is.

You’ll find that your nutrients stay balanced, the nitrogen remains balanced, and the soil stays healthy.

How to Rotate Your Crops

Introduce a different crop each year or two. You won’t want to place the same crop into an area until at least two years have gone by.

In one area of your garden, it may look like this:

Year 1: Tomatoes

Year 2: Beans

Year 3: Cucumbers

Year 4: Tomatoes again

If you only grow a few crops and they’re all in the same family, crop rotation won’t be quite as important. However, even moving them to different beds could offer a few noticeable benefits.