Row By Row Episode 116: The BEST Plan for your Fall Garden Crop Rotation!
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Crop Rotation- Why is it Important?
Crop Rotation is key to having a successful garden for many years. The act of crop rotation means to change up what type of crop you plant in a particular area. If you plant lettuce, lettuce, lettuce, multiple times in one season, you will be prone to more pests and problems because the insects that feed off lettuce will continue to come back. You will also strip your soil of all its nutrients since one crop family has different needs than another crop family.
So, you need to know what crops are in what family. Knowing the crop families will help you in the Fall garden planning. What you want to succession plant and where you want to plant is something that needs to be planned before you start your Fall garden. The following families are the cool-season crop families:
- Alliums- Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Shallots
- Brassicas- Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Kohlrabi, Turnips, Radish, Rutabega, Mustard
- Amaranths- Beets, Chard, Spinach
- Umbellifers- Carrots, Cilantro, Parsley, Dill, Parsnips
- Legumes- English Peas
- Daisy- Lettuce
Ensuring that you follow Alliums with a Legume or Brassicas all garden season will ensure that you have a bountiful harvest. It will also keep your soil in top-notch shape, and you will have less of a need for cover crops.
Things to Consider When Planning Crop Rotation!
When you sit down to consider your Fall garden schedule, there are many things you need to consider. One of those being the maturity dates of things, it would help if you tried to schedule crops with similar maturity dates together. You also want to think about a plant's needs and plant those with similar needs next to each other. Don't plant carrots that barely need any water next to something that requires a lot, same with fertilization.
Also, when planning your crop rotation, you want to think about which seeds are a one-time harvest and which ones are multiple harvests. Of course, this depends on your preference and how many yields you would like to get off each plant, but these are the ones we get multiple crops out of:
- Collards
- Kale
- Mustard & Greens Mixes
- All Top Turnips
- Baby Lettuce Mix
- English Peas
- Spinach
- Chard
Any Fall garden crop that isn't on that list is something we only get one harvest off. Those crops include Beets, Leeks, Garlic, Carrots, and many others. Speaking of carrots, we suggest planting all of those together since they take so long to mature.
Another little top is to plant all of your Allium family plants together at once. They all have similar nutrients needs, and this will be the easiest way to feed and water. After you harvest them, you can then follow it up with a Legume or Daisy family crop.
Show and Tell Segment
As we are gearing up for our Fall garden, we want to make sure you have everything you need for yours too! So, the Seed Starting Kits are back in stock! One big question many of you have with the seed starting kits is, how long do I keep the domes on top of the kits? Our suggestion is to leave on the domes until all of the seeds germinate.
Figs, Figs, Figs, we love eating them, and we got some exciting things coming for them! Be on the lookout in the next few months for an irrigation system, much like our drip tape for fruit trees! We are also working on an irrigation system for those gardeners that have everything in pots. This irrigation system will cut down significantly on your watering time.
In order to keep all our items in stock and have the ability to keep adding new products, Hoss Tools needs to expand! We are currently building a new warehouse, quadruple our size! Making these expansions will give us space and tools we need to help you grow your own food!