Planning for crop rotation
Kosch
10 years ago
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nancyjane_gardener
10 years agoKosch
10 years agoRelated Discussions
Planning ahead for new garden: crop rotation question (picture)
Comments (14)emmie9999, try corn if you want to and have some extra room (particularly if you expand your beds). I live in the country in PA, with lots of corn around. There's a farmstand a half-mile up the road that always has great corn, but I still grow some of my own, just becauase it feels good to look out and see a little patch of corn in my garden. (But I've got a pretty big garden, so I'm not so worried about the space.) This year I'm increasing the fun factor by experimenting with a couple of open-pollinated heirloom varieties along with a regular supersweet hybrid type. You can plant a small patch of corn, but then it helps to hand-pollinate it to get good ears. When the silks show up, cut off some bits of the tassles from the top and dust it over the silks. CAVEAT: I haven't tried that yet, but I read somewhere here that it works well. I'm going to try it this year. Last year I had one very small patch of late summer corn that didn't pollinate well -- I didn't know about hand-pollinating then. A lot of my gardening is just aimed at getting fresh veggies, but a lot of it is also just for fun. I grow some dried beans, for instance. From the perspective of food, it doesn't make any sense, since you can buy a pound of dried beans in the market for about 80 cents. But I grow old heirloom varieties, like Steuben and Amish Knuttle, which you can't get in the market. I don't have room to plant enough to get more than about 1-2 pounds of dried beans per variety, but the beans are pretty and it's just fun. With green beans, you might consider pole beans. You get a much larger harvest from a small amount of garden space. You also can harvest a lot of it standing up. And the teepees look lovely -- I make mine out of 7- or 8-foot lengths of bamboo. One of the downsides is that you can't use row covers (at least not easily), if you're planning on using covers. You also have to make sure the teepees don't shade something else in the garden. One last downside to teepees is that occasionally a good wind will make them start leaning, especially in the early summer before the beans are strong enough to anchor them. Have fun and good luck with your garden....See MoreSmall gardens and crop rotation?
Comments (7)It's around 14.5 x 3.5 feet, wanted to go wider but ma wants it narrow for some reason. You don't want it any wider than four feet because your arms would not be long enough to allow your hands to get into the center for weed/mulch maintenance or to pick for harvest. I know folks say to rotate the 'crops' every year to keep pests at bay, but with only tomatoes and peppers going I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that. Even if you have a four by four bed, you can still rotate your crops. Tomatoes and peppers are tropical plants. You can start planning on a fall planting of beans, flowers, cold crops like broccoli, carrots, radishes, lettuce, beets, cabbages, spinach, etc. This will contribute to crop rotation. So long as your plants are healthy and not harboring any disease, then you should be fine. If your plants are diseased, pull up the entire plant including the roots and remove them from your property entirely. Better safe than sorry. Check with your state's Extension Service. Each county should have it's own Cooperative Extension Office which provides free publications and information for the asking. They will have valuable vegetable/gardening tables available specifically for your area determined by universities and horticultural research scientists who have collected data from growing those crops in your state. Your tax dollars are already paying for this service so you may as well get some use out of it. Vegetable Planting and Planning Calendar for Missouri (download the pdf) complete with spring and fall planting dates (underneath the spring planting dates for appropriate crops), how much to plant per person, etc. They can also tell you the average last frost date for your area and ideal planting times for specific crops and varieties in your area. See how detailed this example is:...See MoreOverlapping seasons and crop rotation
Comments (3)Lauren, if you take a look at the earthbox forum, you'll see that many of the folks who use EBs for commercial growing just till in the old fertilizer strip between crops and never dump them at all, just add new fertilizer each time. I think you'll be fine unless there's a hard freeze, as long as you keep an eye on what the plants are telling you they need....See MoreNeed to understand Future Crop Rotation. Link for Best Rotation?
Comments (6)I took a look at the first link and it is obvious that rotation was designed on chemical requirements only. But rotations do best when they take care of the biological and physical requirements also. Typically, some crops decrease soil life, most notably brassica, and shallow rooted crops allow larger nutrient losses from the root zone. It is profitable to improve the rotation with cover crops or mixed plantings where possible, with biologically friendly and deep rooted crops used in the mix....See Moretishtoshnm Zone 6/NM
10 years agomckenziek
10 years agoNHBabs z4b-5a NH
10 years agoKosch
10 years agomckenziek
10 years agogardenper
10 years ago
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