lets hear about crop rotation systems

[JRinPA]

Does anyone use particular crop rotation rules that they would like to share and explain?

I can't seem to find much here, the site being only a few years old. Plus the site was of course formed by and composed of established gardeners and with tomatoes as the common bond. Tomatoes don't necessarily need rotation, and small gardens don't allow much of it. A lot of us have what we have, and it is tough to dance in a closet.

Still, I'm always trying to figure out rules to go by. I have read of a few different crop rotation systems over the years but nothing has really stuck. A few I say, probably more like dozen that I've totally forgotten.

[JRinPA]

I wanted to separate this from the first post so it does not bog the discussion.

I recently found one that I can indeed remember. Roots, fruits, leafs, legumes. It has some rhyme to it so of course it was easy for me to actually remember it.
My thoughts/guesses on the classification
Roots - potatoes sweet potatoes beets onions garlic turnips carrots radishes parsnips
Fruits - tomato pepper eggplant squash pumpkin okra corn
Leaf - spinach lettuce broccoli cauliflower cabbage
Legumes - peas and beans (help me out but hold the limas)

Does my sorting seem accurate? These are most but not all of my regular garden crops.

Does anyone think that such a progression make any particular sense? Easy to remember is great, when useful. ROYGBIV is useful. But is RFLL? It would be nice if it worked AND each division was equal size so 4 rows could be easily rotated. But I don't see that...

In general I have not paid much attention to crop rotation except not to repeat crops back to back. And I try not to repeat years either. Some of that is for nutrition, some for bugs. I also try to mix legumes before or after heavy feeders, particularly corn.So I might plant spring peas then fall broccoli, the next year spring corn then fall peas, then tomatoes. But I will also be intercropping or companion cropping, with basil on the tomatoes, squash under the corn, spinach and lettuce in between spring cole crops. Red beets and spinach rows right next to the peas. Potatoes and beans sharing a double row.

It seems to me that Crop Rotation and Intercropping are almost directly at odds. Or maybe a better term is incompatible. And of course, not all garden spots are equal. Spots differ by soil, available water, amount of flooding, shading, and amount of sun in spring/fall/short season versus summer/long season.

I am using mostly raised compost rows, with available drip tape that I prefer not to use. Many of these rows are fairly interchangeable. I'm always adding compost but rarely tilling. I don't use much fertilizer or bug killers. I can grow most of what I try to. But now I have that rhyme in my head.

[rossomendblot]

My groups would be alliums, brassicas, nightshades and umbellifers. Alliums because of leaf miner and rust, brassicas because of cabbage root fly, pupating caterpillars and white blister, umbellifers for carrot root fly. We don't have the allium leaf miner up here yet but it's getting warmer every year so it will eventually come. In practice, I don't strictly stick to rotation, and it doesn't even seem to be effective against the foliage diseases anyway if the weather conditions are favourable for their spread. We can buy packets of nematodes which kill root fly, cutworms etc and fine netting prevents their population building up in the first place.

I don't grow potatoes in the ground, but if I did they would be quite important to rotate due to the number of underground issues they can get. Legumes and cucurbits I am happy to stick anywhere since they rarely get disease or pests over here (apart from powdery mildew).

[bower]

I am interested in this subject but I don't have any 'rules' to offer.
Like you @JRinPA I mainly avoid repeats, that I guess is a rule in itself.
I've seen rotations described where they were based on heavy vs light feeders vs N fixers but I don't have enough beds developed to be doing a three year rotation. So considering garlic a 'heavy', I've tried light feeders like potatoes, carrots, and grains as the non allium year rotation where I don't use any fertilizer, then beef up the beds with fresh compost before garlic planting in the fall. I also tried an intercrop of soup peas and barley last year, where the barley (a short sturdy variety) also provided the support for the peas. That worked pretty well. So far I haven't noticed any difference to the garlic of one crop rotation or another.

[eyolf]

My main garden contains 12 beds, 4 feet by 30 feet, and one across the south end 3 feet by 48 feet. In any year, 2 or 3 are fallowed; basically sheet-composted a little like Ruth Stout. Occasionally I poke around to get a few worms to go fishing. Tomatoes grow in black plastic mulch, and any tomato bed grows something else for 4 years. I usually grow one bed of potatoes, one or two of cabbages and broccoli, two of onions and garlic, all heavily mulched a la Ruth Stout. Corn is grown a little too closely planted in 4x4 blocks, but gets last-years fallow ground, lots of water, and both organic and commercial fertilizers. Soil life seems to be able to survive modest amounts of chemical fertilizers, applied every 3 weeks, rather than one glut in the spring. When tassels are out, that block has had its last serving of nitrate.

I dont really have a rotation plan aside from 4 years between tomato growings.

[GoDawgs]

I try to do a three year rotation among brassicas, nightshades, cucurbits, alliums, legumes and potatoes. No carrot rust fly here so carrots get planted along the edges of beds with whatever else is planted in there. Same with turnips and some alliums except no alliums in a legume bed. A lot of times some summer legumes are planted behind corn to add back nitrogen.

There are sixteen beds all 4'x18' plus a few no-bed areas and none are fallow in a year. That makes it a lot easier to rotate stuff than trying to do so in a small space. With smaller spaces I think it might depend on what kinds of pests there are in that area. Lower insect pressure might lessen the need for shifting stuff around.

[JRinPA]

This was good stuff here, thank you. Tomato free for four years though, that's getting serious!

I put some thought into this and probably use the root fruit leaf legume as a fallback. Better than a coin flip I guess. Yes, deep thought went into this, I swear, it is just tough for me to weigh all the variables here. So I like the rhyme.

One idea I came up with for my situation is to grow my sauce tomatoes every second year, only. Also I don't want to grow beans nor squash at the house in consecutive years, due to pests. So that sets up a rotation. Sauce tomatoes were grown in the back garden last year. So they will be in the back garden again Next year. This year that garden has pole beans. Both will grow on the same tall CRW cages and will rotate yearly. Second, I don't want to grow beans twice in the row at the house. So next year when the tomatoes are here, the beans (either pole or bush filet) will be at the comm garden in bean beetle country. Probably both, with an early bush harvest before things get bad there. Third, this year I have squash at the comm garden, and will run butternut up a trellis like the first couple times I grew it. Next year the butternut will come back to the house into the bed the squash likes.

For the most part I'll just stay as I'm doing, trying to intercrop a lot and have seed or seedlings ready for when a bed opens up.

[GoDawgs]

Lately I'm trying to plant legumes and cucurbits to follow brassicas. This is to test the possible reduction in nematode populations from brassica plantings by coming behind them with the things that seem to be most susceptible to nematodes here, like cukes, squash, beans and peas. We'll see.