I'm aiming to build up the soil 'permaculture style', but *not* for one family of crops. I'm going to intersperse everything and experiment with guilds, aiming for a lot of perennial crops. I'm in the middle of setting up a food forest at the moment an am hoping to do less and less work in the garden every year so I can end my days shuffling around eating without doing very much work at all.

Of course, it takes a bit of effort to get to that stage...

One is not exclusive of the other. Each system is one way of building up the soil, if used properly. Far too many people seem to think rotation is to aid in preventing insect and disease proplems, today, rather than a means of building soil fertility. Permaculture is far too labor intensive, even though only once if done right, and is unnecessary labor if sufficient organic matter is added to the soil, although many of the other concepts are right out of the organic gardeners bible.

Burra - Had not idea what a "food forest" was. After doing a tiny bit of research it sounds like you have your work cut out for you. You must have quite a bit of land to attempt something like that. Sounds intriguing though.

Val

If those were the only 2 choices then I guess I'd have to say I'm into permaculture.

Given the limited amount of garden space available to most, rotation simply isn't a viable option for home gardeners and I would disagree with your claim that "most gardeners go for rotation". Commercial operations, sure. Home gardeners, no.

But as kimmsr already said, it isn't an either/or situation. My philosophy, even with over 1 acre of gardens, is semi-annual soil replenishment using lots of compost and heavy layers of organic mulches. That way the soil is never depleted, in fact it is always being improved, and the gardens remain consistently productive even with the same crops year after year.

Dave

"Far too many people seem to think rotation is to aid in preventing insect and disease proplems, today, rather than a means of building soil fertility."

That's because on a gardening level, that is a reason many people should rotate. Many people think this because it's often suggested in books and magazines to reduce insect poplulations and soil borne diseases by not planting where they already have a year's foothold (sometimes two).

It's even on a farming level. Corn isn't rotated with soy just for the nutrient replenishment (though there is no doubt soy is often the plant used because of it's nitrogen replenishment ability and the end product's usefulness, it's not the only plant used in rotation). It's also because if you grow corn too many times in one spot consecutively you will have a worm problem get so out of control you'll never grow good corn again. You will also get repeat infections of the soil borne diseases such as leaf spot and anthracnose. That's why it used to be so rare to see it grown more than a year (sometimes two) at max. Now there are breeds of corn and pesticides that are making the worms and diseases less of an issue and farmers are chancing the third year more lately because of the price of corn going up for ethanol.

Anyway, though I'm not arguing the soil replenishment value, I am saying it's not the only reason and certainly not the reason mentioned in the Vegetable Gardener's Bible, which is one of the books many newer gardeners base decisions on. And Purdue University seems to think it's the best weapon against the corn rootworm because the genetically modified means (Bt Corn) might just make the rootworms evolve stronger.

In certain climates, if you grow cucumber more than two or three years in a row you will find yourself having serious beetle problems as the larvae take residence in the soil and enjoy consecutive successful eating/breeding years. If you rob those little soil borne buggers of food a year or two (they won't feed on tomatoes, for example) then you won't have generations building up in your garden. I find a 6 row rotation to work for my garden. Actually it's 5 rows and one empty row. Not all rows are just one vege and I usually throw herbs in between. The empty changes each year and the rows each move to the next. I also rotate my raised beds.

Yes, rotate veges in my opinion. There is more than one really good reason to do so. Several books even have a few recommendation on what crops are best to rotate as the same insects and diseases attack more than one crop sometimes.

Since I grow more tomatoes than anything else, rotation isn't really possible for me. And since I do lasagna gardening and get some 'new' soil created every year, it doesn't seem to be a problem. I don't try to fertilize anything in particular, I just try to have fabulous soil full of organic material made out of a LARGE variety of things. So I don't think that is permaculture either.

My method works well, so I stick with it.

Marcia

There are more than two options, as the above discussions demonstrate. On my market farm, I rotate family of crops known to prone to buildups of pests and diseases if planted in succession on the same beds. This seems an appropriate management scheme for annual food crops.

Food forests are fundamentally perennial trees, shrubs and vines with scattered understories, perhaps, of annuals. My back yard and half my front yard is part of my food forest with more than 25 trees present. I do grow out somre varieties of crop plants for seed saving -- avoiding contamination of the seed from stray pollen from other varieties.

In my landscaping business, we specialize in edible landscaping, at least encouraging clients to plant fruit trees and a minimum of five small raised beds. Crops are rotated through these five beds. The garlic/onion family and tomato family ought to be on a five-year rotation, squash family on a three-year, cabbage family on a two- to three-year cycle, corn on a three-year cycle, and so on.

That said, I do "cheat" by coming back sooner to the same beds if the prior plants of the crop didn't show significant pests or diseases. What doesn't work for me is coming back to the onion family too soon.

Marcia wrote:

"Since I grow more tomatoes than anything else, rotation isn't really possible for me. And since I do lasagna gardening and get some 'new' soil created every year, it doesn't seem to be a problem. I don't try to fertilize anything in particular, I just try to have fabulous soil full of organic material made out of a LARGE variety of things. So I don't think that is permaculture either.
My method works well, so I stick with it."

FWIW, I do the same.

For me, rotation serves 3 unmentioned purposes. 1) It gives me a chance to rest. 2) I don't believe that my interventions are better than earth's own; it is very easy to, in a sense, be greedy and grow on every inch at all times. This is strictly my philosophy applied to me. I'd love to have twice as much ground to crop and grow as much as we need, but philosophically cannot. 3) It allows for a great deal of flexibility when planning subsequent crops. I change my mind alot and often make mistakes.