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#1
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rotation in the garden
have realised what my problem is re rotating the garden beds in an organised
manner: 1: lots of brassicas. i seem to grow half brassicas & half other stuff!! (only slight exaggeration). this makes rotation difficult! in summer, lots of solanacae (sp!) as well, of course, which have to be somewhere different each season. 2: not everything comes out at the same time - the garden goes all year. (how is one to rotate in this circumstance?!) i try to keep a record & then consider what was in each section of each bed - the entire bed isn't taken as a whole because they're quite long, with perhaps up to 10 different things along the length - and only in the same family if it's worked out that way. if it hasn't worked out that way, i can't do it. in a nutshell, if i rotate as best i can but still grow lots of brassica, am i setting myself up for a disease disaster? i simply cannot think how to plan good rotations under this circumstance. with the brassica i take out the entire roots, so each location gets a rest - is that enough? the whole family is now in love with chinese cabbage & pak choy, so if i am setting up a problem, it is only going to get worse. thanks for any help or ideas! kylie |
#2
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rotation in the garden
On Tue, 06 May 2008 00:26:00 +0000, 0tterbot wrote:
have realised what my problem is re rotating the garden beds in an organised manner: It is a worry here as well as we tend to grow mixed beds and sometimes they evolve rather than follow the strict idea of wipe clean and replant. The real problem is that multiple plantings of the same crop(famil) in the same plot allows pests/dieseases to buld up in that spot. so spelling the ground from that family lets them starve away. all you can really do is rotate different plots in turn from that family until the family fad fades {:-). |
#3
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rotation in the garden
"terryc" wrote in message news On Tue, 06 May 2008 00:26:00 +0000, 0tterbot wrote: have realised what my problem is re rotating the garden beds in an organised manner: It is a worry here as well as we tend to grow mixed beds and sometimes they evolve rather than follow the strict idea of wipe clean and replant. The real problem is that multiple plantings of the same crop(famil) in the same plot allows pests/dieseases to buld up in that spot. so spelling the ground from that family lets them starve away. all you can really do is rotate different plots in turn from that family until the family fad fades {:-). I have pondered rotation myself. Having only been growing in this garden for the last few seasons so I have only just started getting it straight mind. I have 5 gardens, 3 long rectangular ones, a shorter squarish one and a triangle shaped one. For my major crops I reckon I can do a 3 year rotation. By major crops I mean tomatos, sweet corn and kumara over summer. In one year I grew potatos but switched to kumara this year & reckon I may continue with that. I plan to grow those 3 major summer crops again next summer. Rotating will have tomatos back in the same bed on the fourth year of a cycle. year one tomatos year two kumara year 3 sweet corn year 4 tomatos lettuces, broccoli, beetroot, spring onions etc get grown in the 2 smaller beds and at the end of rows of the big 3 crops as space allows. This all changes over winter. The triangle bed mostly gets rested over winter as it does not get winter sun. Of the 3 big crops, I have figured out that garlic is quite a good one to follow tomatos. The tomato bed will be cropped heavily with garlic until early summer. One winter I followed the tomatos with a mustard green manure. I have undersowed a green manure of beans under the sweet corn. The kumara bed has been stripped out and will have some broccoli, beetroot & lettuces. I am happy with the big 3 crop rotation, though maybe sweet corn should follow tomatos and then followed by kumara. Not sure yet of the nutrition requirements. The text book rotation I came across recently is apparently a nitrogen green manure (like beans), a leaf vegetable, a seed/fruit (like tomatos or corn) crop and finally a tuber crop. I guess I would need 4 large garden beds for that. A mate who is an organic grower told me not to be anal about rotation, given the size of my back yard vege garden. Mr Yates points out that in temperate climates there is a natural rotation between hot season & cool season crops. You can't follow egg plant with tomatos or follow tomatos with potatos. He also suggests gardens packed with organic matter, humus, compost etc help minimise build up of problems in garden beds (maybe the microbal activity in the humus combats negative soil deseases etc). Feeding the garden with poop or compost each year also minimises the need to sow nitrogen fixing or nutrient scavaging green manures. That said, I reckon green manures are quite an interesting topic & something I am starting to get my head around. The beans are an experiment with nitrogen fixers (I don't eat beans). The mustard was an experiment with keep the bed covered over winter & stopping nutrients leaching. I guess if you are going to fallow a garden for a season or 2 a green manure makes sense for a number of reasons. The organic grower mates suggested with nitrogen fixers also putting in something that will use the nitrogen, maybe a grass. A 1/2 clover & grass mix on a garden bed will get the clover producing nitrogen and also have a crop that utilises the nitrogen, thereby encouraging the clover to produce more nitrogen. When the crop is killed and mulched you get double the amount of nitrogen being returned to the soil (what the clover produced & what the grass took up). rob |
#4
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rotation in the garden
"0tterbot" wrote in message ... I was at a lecture on this topic and the bloke described his 4 bed rotation system. Somebody asked did he rotate the sequence clockwise or anticlockwise. He replied seriously that he went clockwise but he had heard that others went the reverse. Organic enthusiasts can be soooo serious sometimes. David |
#5
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rotation in the garden
g'dau otterbot,
rotation isn't a part of our gardening to do it would almost mean having twice as many gardens as space would permit. as much as we can our agrdens get a month or 2 of fallowing between seasonal crops. as we feed and top the medium continually and we try not to plant exactly in the same spot as the last season but the next side postion we have never had any unbdesirable effects ie.,. nematodes etc.,. we've gardened this way for a decade now and we grow healthy plants which give us healthy food all without any man made chemical or fertiliser intervention. On Tue, 06 May 2008 00:26:00 GMT, "0tterbot" wrote: snipped With peace and brightest of blessings, len & bev -- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand." http://www.lensgarden.com.au/ |
#6
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rotation in the garden
In article ,
len gardener wrote: g'dau otterbot, rotation isn't a part of our gardening to do it would almost mean having twice as many gardens as space would permit. as much as we can our agrdens get a month or 2 of fallowing between seasonal crops. as we feed and top the medium continually and we try not to plant exactly in the same spot as the last season but the next side postion we have never had any unbdesirable effects ie.,. nematodes etc.,. we've gardened this way for a decade now and we grow healthy plants which give us healthy food all without any man made chemical or fertiliser intervention. On Tue, 06 May 2008 00:26:00 GMT, "0tterbot" wrote: snipped With peace and brightest of blessings, len & bev -- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand." http://www.lensgarden.com.au/ Rotation does not have to be circular though the word suggest it. Back and forth may give similar desired effects. In some ways I'd suggest the word rest or Fallow may be useful. I'd recommend green manure if you can add to your tilth. Bill new to aus.gardens and ignorant. For instance can you grow food stuff year round ? We can minimally as some hardy greens can over winter. Someone crossed posted from wrecked gardens and I sort of resonated. -- Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA |
#7
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rotation in the garden
On Tue, 06 May 2008 18:07:00 -0400, Bill wrote:
Bill new to aus.gardens and ignorant. For instance can you grow food stuff year round ? We can minimally as some hardy greens can over winter. Well, in Sydney we can. Just choose appropriately. would also depend on individual gardens. Some years we have had bad frost effects, but not so far this year, despitethe bitterly cold weather. |
#8
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rotation in the garden
"Bill" wrote in message
Bill new to aus.gardens and ignorant. For instance can you grow food stuff year round ? We can minimally as some hardy greens can over winter. It depends on the poster Bill. Len lives in the subtropics but I live in a cold climate. I can grow things like Silver Beet (chard) all year round but I get frosts so that makes potatoes, tomatoes etc a summer only thing Someone crossed posted from wrecked gardens and I sort of resonated. Welcome! |
#9
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rotation in the garden
"0tterbot" wrote in message
... have realised what my problem is re rotating the garden beds in an organised manner: I try to do at least a two year rotation, but in my garden, my sloppiness doesn't seem to have had any ill effects. I have read somewhere that if you garden organically, it isn't vital to rotate, but who the hell knows if that is true. In our case we only have 3 areas whihc I would call 'beds' and then there is all the side stuff and permanent beds and areas still being brought into good heart before they become beds. The tomatoes start in the bed at the bottom of the hill and then over subsequent years move to the next bed up the hill and then start at the bottom of the hill in the lowest bed again. Same with corn. The poor old spuds have got a permanent bed and so far no problems. The reason why it's permanent is that we can never harvest them all and then when they come up, it tends to be a busy time, we don't get tot hem and by the time we do get to them to actually do soemthing with their area, we don't have the heart to dig them up. Will have to do something there soon though. |
#10
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rotation in the garden
In article ,
"0tterbot" wrote: have realised what my problem is re rotating the garden beds in an organised manner: 1: lots of brassicas. i seem to grow half brassicas & half other stuff!! (only slight exaggeration). this makes rotation difficult! in summer, lots of solanacae (sp!) as well, of course, which have to be somewhere different each season. You've omitted the legumes, the other big vegie garden family. If you follow your brassicas with solanaceae and then with legumes, you have a rotation. 2: not everything comes out at the same time - the garden goes all year. (how is one to rotate in this circumstance?!) i try to keep a record & then consider what was in each section of each bed - the entire bed isn't taken as a whole because they're quite long, with perhaps up to 10 different things along the length - and only in the same family if it's worked out that way. if it hasn't worked out that way, i can't do it. in a nutshell, if i rotate as best i can but still grow lots of brassica, am i setting myself up for a disease disaster? i simply cannot think how to plan good rotations under this circumstance. with the brassica i take out the entire roots, so each location gets a rest - is that enough? I have a similar problem in that I'm not organised enough to do proper rotations. OTOH I plant mixtures of crops, which tend to minimise pest problems. -- Chookie -- Sydney, Australia (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply) http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/ |
#11
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rotation in the garden
g'day bill,
copy book rotation is something that occurs over 4 to 6 growing seasons and it requires the growing of crops in certain sequences ie.,. heavy feeders, light feeders etc.,. all follow each other in sequence, it is quiet involved, but for most of us we don't have space for that many gardens and we need as much stuff as we can grow. my fallows may only be 2 weeks up to 4 weeks odd occassions longer and it will only be for sections of a garden bed. no time or space for growing green mulches either. On Tue, 06 May 2008 18:07:00 -0400, Bill wrote: In article , len gardener wrote: snipped With peace and brightest of blessings, len & bev -- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand." http://www.lensgarden.com.au/ |
#12
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rotation in the garden
"George.com" wrote in message
... "terryc" wrote in message news terry The real problem is that multiple plantings of the same crop(famil) in the same plot allows pests/dieseases to buld up in that spot. so spelling the ground from that family lets them starve away. all you can really do is rotate different plots in turn from that family until the family fad fades {:-). this is the problem - trying to do that!! i'm a bit disorganised & have trouble planning in advance (i can plan at the time though... um...). hence my question! i keep reading a 3 or preferably 4 year rotation is best - i suppose i am wondering if i can get away with 2 in some patches.. or perhaps only a short break for some of the brassica. it might just be my perpetual reading of english gardening books - maybe they overstate the probability of club root.(?). george I guess I would need 4 large garden beds for that. i have 6 & it's not working out in an organised manner ;-) A mate who is an organic grower told me not to be anal about rotation, given the size of my back yard vege garden. Mr Yates points out that in temperate climates there is a natural rotation between hot season & cool season crops. well, this is good news on both counts. that applies with my potato/tomato problem - there's always going to be breaks over winter & so far i can keep them moving around. more concerned about the brassica, where i'm growing many kinds & hence, there is always brassica in the beds, & not enough room to limit them to specific beds. You can't follow egg plant with tomatos or follow tomatos with potatos. He also suggests gardens packed with organic matter, humus, compost etc help minimise build up of problems in garden beds (maybe the microbal activity in the humus combats negative soil deseases etc). Feeding the garden with poop or compost each year also minimises the need to sow nitrogen fixing or nutrient scavaging green manures. That said, I reckon green manures are quite an interesting topic & something I am starting to get my head around. The beans are an experiment with nitrogen fixers (I don't eat beans). The mustard was an experiment with keep the bed covered over winter & stopping nutrients leaching. I guess if you are going to fallow a garden for a season or 2 a green manure makes sense for a number of reasons. The organic grower mates suggested with nitrogen fixers also putting in something that will use the nitrogen, maybe a grass. A 1/2 clover & grass mix on a garden bed will get the clover producing nitrogen and also have a crop that utilises the nitrogen, thereby encouraging the clover to produce more nitrogen. When the crop is killed and mulched you get double the amount of nitrogen being returned to the soil (what the clover produced & what the grass took up). love the idea of green manures. it's not happening in my existing garden as the garden is always full! (although i put the pea & bean plants back on when they're pulled out...) i've sown field peas in some new beds, which WOULD be going well, but that the *$^#$!!!! wallaby eats it. (as well as everything else - what's going to be left to rotate? ;-) trying to add bulk & nitrogen. have put net & mesh all about - undoubtedly i'll end up catching the wallaby by accident as he continues to eat the pea plants g i understand the mustard family are excellent because they grow very well, are very bulky & have a reputation as a fumigant as well (?). also wallabies don't seem to like mustard so much g (he never eats the mizuna). ta! kylie |
#13
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rotation in the garden
"len gardener" wrote in message
... g'dau otterbot, rotation isn't a part of our gardening to do it would almost mean having twice as many gardens as space would permit. as much as we can our agrdens get a month or 2 of fallowing between seasonal crops. as we feed and top the medium continually and we try not to plant exactly in the same spot as the last season but the next side postion we have never had any unbdesirable effects ie.,. nematodes etc.,. we've gardened this way for a decade now and we grow healthy plants which give us healthy food all without any man made chemical or fertiliser intervention. this is encouraging :-) that's pretty much what's happening, i'm just not experienced enough to decide if i'm setting up a disaster, or if it's moving around enough as is. ta! kylie |
#14
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rotation in the garden
"Bill" wrote in message
... Rotation does not have to be circular though the word suggest it. Back and forth may give similar desired effects. In some ways I'd suggest the word rest or Fallow may be useful. I'd recommend green manure if you can add to your tilth. back & forth is fine by me! it's what i've been trying to do. genuine rotation with x always following y following z is good for plant nutrition preferences, as i understand it. however, i'm really not trying to do that (yet?); just not organised enough, & it hasn't started out that way therefore harder to introduce now. maybe one day :-) just worrying that i'm not giving enough time between brassicas, mainly. Bill new to aus.gardens and ignorant. For instance can you grow food stuff year round ? We can minimally as some hardy greens can over winter. do you mean in australia? (if so...) depends on your climate. in the tropical north, they grow "summer" veg in winter, when it's not too hot or wet, & can't grow "winter" veg at all as a rule, but they have tropical fruits & veg in summer, yum! the rest of us in more temperate climes tend to follow the standard european seasonal crops, summer veg in summer, & winter veg in winter. it gets quite cold where i am, with frosts, but snow is exceedingly rare & the ground doesn't freeze or anything like that, so i've got all the usual winter things in (onions, broad beans, cabbage, broccoli, rocket, lettuce, some carrots which i'm sure are failing, parsnip, leeks, etc etc - anything which is frost-hardy is fine for winter & i'll give it a go!) Someone crossed posted from wrecked gardens and I sort of resonated. i was wondering what that humming noise is ;-) kylie |
#15
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rotation in the garden
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
... "0tterbot" wrote in message ... have realised what my problem is re rotating the garden beds in an organised manner: I try to do at least a two year rotation, but in my garden, my sloppiness doesn't seem to have had any ill effects. I have read somewhere that if you garden organically, it isn't vital to rotate, but who the hell knows if that is true. maybe not AS vital? i'm sure a good rotation would be better, but unsure how to introduce it now (especially with the brassica preponderance). it does sound logical that if i keep adding as much poo & mulch (& now compost as it is really getting going in bulk now!!) that the effects of being a bit slack & disorganised will be somewhat ameliorated :-) In our case we only have 3 areas whihc I would call 'beds' and then there is all the side stuff and permanent beds and areas still being brought into good heart before they become beds. The tomatoes start in the bed at the bottom of the hill and then over subsequent years move to the next bed up the hill and then start at the bottom of the hill in the lowest bed again. Same with corn. The poor old spuds have got a permanent bed and so far no problems. The reason why it's permanent is that we can never harvest them all and then when they come up, it tends to be a busy time, we don't get tot hem and by the time we do get to them to actually do soemthing with their area, we don't have the heart to dig them up. Will have to do something there soon though. i have that live-&-let-live attitude to the potatoes as well. which, because i'm _trying_ to rotate them, seems to mean random potato plants everywhere. errr!!!! thanks for the encouragement. kylie |
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